FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Dynamics

Part two of four

---

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Cougar

_ _

_ _

A week and a half later, Mark found himself navigating his car to the staff entrance of the SCA tournament grounds, set up within the larger fairgrounds. There seemed to be other events on there at the same time, beyond the organisation that Mercy worked with, though his eyes could not flick to them, considering everything, at that time.

As much as the feline was keen to see his sister again, it was hard for him to concentrate while he got there, shaking his head lightly, nerves getting the better of him. He grunted and made an apologetic gesture in the direction of a steward who was looking at him very oddly, but he had printed and stuck the staff friend pass to the windscreen of his car that she had sent to him. He'd just point it out and Mercy's staff number if anyone asked about it.

"Where to go, where to go..." He muttered to himself, turning his car radio down so that he could see better, even though that made no sense at all - to anyone. "Hm..."

It was quite a large fairground, however, and she had not given him directions to where her tent was set up - which was apparently not where her van was. That was problematic.

"Excuse me? Excuse me!"

He grumbled in the back of his throat, hating having to call over someone's attention. The stoat scurried over, flicking his eyes over the car and clearly not recognising it.

"Yes?" He said when Mark rolled the window down a little more. "What's up?"

"I'm a bit lost," he confessed. "Do you know where Mercy is? Cougar?"

"Ah - yes!"

The stoat smiled, recognising why he was there, at least.

"So, you want to go down there," he said, pointing past a line of trucks that had to be transporting things for the shows. "Take a left at the green caravan and you can park up there. You'll have to walk over to where the tents are pitched but Mercy has a round one with a flag on top. Red and yellow, two crossed swords on it. You can't miss it."

He thanked the stoat and headed off, carefully, not wanting to get in anyone's way. It was not the kind of space that the cougar was at all used to taking up. His tail curled uncomfortably close to his body as he headed out of the car, locking it up, sure that it would be safe there with so many others around. After all, Mercy trusted then and, well...he trusted Mercy. That was good enough for him, even if it was a new environment.

Her tent was small but cosy, the flag extending from the point at which the tent poles crossed over the top, though it had been an awfully long time indeed since Mark had been camping. That, in fact, might have been with Mercy before. He wondered briefly why it was that she needed the van and the tent - though was interrupted by his sister before he could follow the thought through.

"Mark!"

She lunged for him, a blur of lighter-coloured fur than what was layered softly over his body. She wrapped her arms around him before he'd even gotten a chance to take her in and Mark grunted, realising one thing that he had not remembered before.

Mercy was strong.

Like, really strong.

So strong, in fact, that she was no longer even allowed, since the end of high school a few years back, to use the grip strength checker things at the gym. He remembered that, but he had forgotten just how hard her body was, wearing only a vest top that revealed her muscled arms, the swell of her biceps tightening around him as he grunted, squeezed too tightly to be comfortable.

"Unff... Mercy..."

He could have been asking for Mercy or literally for mercy itself. The cougar, however, set him down with a grin, ever so slightly taller than him but appearing much bigger than him in that moment. She was just so much bulkier than him, her abs hard as she clasped his forearms, as if she didn't quite want to let him get away from her.

"It's so good to see you again!" She said with feeling, tail flicking back and forth as if the depth of her emotion could not be displayed through any other means. "We've got to not let it go so long again, I'll call you whenever I'm in the area, for real this time."

He smiled.

"You sound convinced," he shot back, teasing her. "And you haven't even spent a minute with me yet."

"Well, I don't need to," she said, as sure of herself than ever. "I have you and that's all I need."

He glanced at her, suddenly feeling...just a bit uncomfortable. Not in the way that he would have been while meeting for more awkward reasons, if there had ever been any bad blood between them, no... It was if there was something hot pooling and coiling in the pit of his stomach, a flooding of fluttering twisting (yeah, he knew that didn't really make sense) that would have made more sense if he was talking to...well, anyone else.

Not with his sister.

It was just a little bit awkward, he told himself, trying to shake it off, not to let it bother him all that much. Mark laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, though it was hard to forget just how thick and muscled her body was when it had been pressed up against his in a hug.

"Wow," he said, taking a half-step back to put just a little bit more space between them. "You've changed, Mercy, damn... You were muscled before when you were doing all the martial arts stuff, but nothing like this!"

She had grown and developed into herself and her body, though that honestly made sense considering the kind of work and labour that she had to do daily.

"So, how's things been going here?" He asked, moving things on quickly, ignoring the stirring of unease in the pit of his stomach. "It looks great!"

"Yeah, it's going really well," Mercy said with a smile. "It's been really busy but I don't have a show until tomorrow, so it was a good day for you to come over. You get to see me fight!"

Some may have said that with a sense of being abashed but, well...Mercy had never been like that. Maybe she had, in a way, been too like their mother, always forward, though Mark did not look as much like her, not really. He didn't know, as their father had left so very long ago, that he was the spitting image of Tom, but, well...

Things would always come with context that may not be readily available, as was the way of things.

"I'd love to watch you," Mark said sincerely, really meaning it. "It must be crazy to fight like that... I know I could never do it, I've still not got enough muscle on me. I don't really need it."

"Nah, you look great as you are," she said. "You don't have to worry about things like that, seriously. As long as everyone's healthy, why bother or worry about things like that? You've got a swimmer's body."

She tilted her head as if considering something.

"Do cougars even swim? Like, you know... Non-anthro ones, the ones that aren't like us?"

He wrinkled his muzzle, shuddering.

"Uh... I don't know about that, I never liked swimming lessons," he said. "They were always... Ugh, even after showering it takes so long to dry off!"

"That's because you're too lazy to air dry," she shot back at him, giving him a friendly shove with her shoulder that sent him staggering faintly. "That takes longer but it's soooo much less effort!"

"Yeah, because I don't want the whole place to reek of wet fur, you know!"

It was like things had never changed between them as they laughed and joked and he tried his best to ignore whatever that strange tension had been in the pit of his stomach, something that the cougar had not felt in a very long time indeed. It was not something at all that he needed to pay attention to, he reasoned with himself, no... It was just nerves from seeing Mercy again after so long, that was all, nothing more and nothing less.

So, that would be okay too, he was sure of it.

She introduced him to some of the other SCA members that she knew closely too, though Mark wasn't sure, after everything, that he would remember their names. He'd always been so bad at names!

"Hey, Stan," she said, cupping her fingers around her muzzle to call over a big, rather burly lion. "This is Mark! Come say hi!"

Mark swallowed hard, not wanting to be the centre of attention but, well, that was not a role that Mercy had ever really had any trouble with. The lion smiled easily, striding over with an easy roll to his gait, as if he was eating up the ground with every step that he took.

"Hey!" He said warmly, his tone thick like honey. "Mercy said you were coming by, we didn't even know that she had a boyfriend for a while!"

Boyfriend? His ear twitched. What were they talking about? He shot Mercy a pointed look and caught a smirk back off his sister. She had to be doing something for a reason, most likely a joke.

"Oh, yeah, yeah... I can understand that," Mark said, playing along with a small smile on his lips as he shook the lion's paw, conscious of the fact that the lion was a few inches taller than him and much broader across the shoulders. "Things got so busy after moving for both of us, but I'm glad to be able to see things here now. The show looks amazing!"

"Thanks!" The lion grinned more widely, a little more relaxed in his posture. "Are you coming to watch the performance tomorrow?"

"Yeah, definitely!" Mercy cut in, answering for him. "We're both in the heavy armour division so it should be a great round."

"It'll be weird seeing you like that," Mark mused. "I've not seen it, you didn't even send a picture."

"Oh, there'll be plenty of those," Stan said. "They always take promo shots and put them online, we'll get you the link to the gallery. Our photos aren't as good as what the professional camera person takes."

"There's not all that much time to take photos either when we're busy," Mercy concurred. "But, yeah, I'll share those with you, Mark."

He hadn't gotten used to the cadence of her voice again, how some of the things that Mercy said came off as a little short, but that was purely because the cougar simply saw no reason to add lots of extra words when all that she had said was good enough. She'd never been one for small talk either, even then trying to focus on specific subjects.

They moved on and she introduced him to a rabbit who looked to be a light combat demonstrator with a leather jerkin over a medieval-like shirt that Mark did not know the name of. She was light and lithe, though Mark was sure that she too could have been more than lethal if she wanted to be. All that they did there, of course, was for demonstration, performance and show purposes though, not to hurt anyone. Still, if an intruder broke into her home in the dead of the night and attacked her... Mark could not see any reason not to use any weapons at her disposal.

That time, Mercy was louder, stepping forward and taking him by the opposite shoulder as she drew him in against her side.

"Hey, Tina," she said, her white whiskers bristling lightly. "This is my boyfriend, Mark. You know, the guy I talked about?"

He glanced at her. He had definitely heard "boyfriend" that time. What the hell was Mercy on? Yet the cougar only shot him a grin and a sidelong look, prompting him to keep quiet. He remembered those looks from back when they had been up to something a little sneaky and they'd wanted to remain under the radar of their mother.

She steamrolled over him anyway as she charged on. But he didn't mind her talking for him, not usually, for she always seemed to know what was on his mind anyway... Yet why did everyone seem to think that he was her boyfriend? Did she have a boyfriend who was a cougar that they had mistaken him for?

Yeah... Yeah, that really would have been her sense of humour to run with it as a joke, that made sense. Even if his stomach coiled and twisted uncomfortably, knowing that it was not true.

"Uh..."

"It's so good to meet you, Mark!" The bunny gushed, Tina, grabbing his paw in both of hers and pumping it up and down several times. "Oh, wow, she's been talking about you so much this last week! Don't give me that look, Mercy, you know it's true!"

That had him chuckling lightly, rubbing his arm, trying to find a moment, a bit of relaxation. There was so much energy there! It was nothing at all like his usual more relaxed way of life. Even his work was not usually that frantic, working on his own most of the time, able to get on with things at something akin to his own pace.

"Yeah, Mark's just down for the weekend," the cougar said, brushing over the rabbit's comments. "Are you competing tomorrow too? He's coming to watch!"

"Oh, that's going to be a really good one," Tina effused, bouncing up onto the soles of her feet as if her enthusiasm could not be contained, it just had to come out in some way. "There's a really big crowd booked to come and there are the walk-ins too, Gerome has been advertising it all over social media and the local pages."

Mark wasn't all that comfortable in big crowds, but he was still more than willing to do it for Mercy's sake. Still, he could not shake the weird feeling that he had about Mercy letting everyone go on believing that he was her boyfriend, that was strange...

"Hey..." He had to ask as soon as they were out of Tina's earshot. "Why... You know... Mercy, why does everyone think that I'm your boyfriend?"

The cougar shrugged, suddenly interested in a tapestry that was being hung up under cover, for they had made their way over to where the market stalls were being set up for the following day under tents. The traders seemed to be needing to get a head-start on things, considering that the weekend, most likely, would be packed from dawn to dusk for them. Hopefully, the weather overnight would not be too troublesome for them.

"Oh, it's just a silly thing they do, don't worry about it," she said, the flick of her tail hinting at her evasiveness. "So, you're coming to the tournament, right? I should show you how to get there and put the time in your phone..."

He couldn't, after all, come in the staff entrance if he was going to watch as a spectator the next day. He didn't quite like her answer to him asking about the whole boyfriend thing, though neither could Mark explain why he didn't push back against it as much as he could have.

Just a joke, yeah... That's what he told himself. That was all he had to take from it and, surely, there was no harm in it.

"So... Two in the afternoon?" Mark said, tilting his head to look at the details that Mercy was adding to the calendar on his phone. "I can do that, yeah. But I better head off now, it's getting late. I gotta get back now to come back in the morning, see you, see the show... You know, all that?"

Mercy flicked her tail and all but scoffed at him.

"Don't be silly," she said, as if it was a given already. "You will stay here tonight. Everything's okay, I've got the van and there's a spare air mattress, spare bedding... Everything you need is already here."

Mark hesitated.

"Are you sure? I wasn't planning to stay, I don't have stuff with me..."

"I've got everything you could need here," she repeated, smiling. "Don't worry about it... We'll stay in the tent though, it's going to be easier than squeezing into the van. Kind of...cosy."

Something in Mark muttered that he wouldn't have minded things being cosy, not really. And that was just how Mark found himself being swept up and away in the whirlwind that was Mercy, taken for a ride, even though he didn't mind spending more time with her. Just a little bit of warning would have been nice, right?

In the tent, there was plenty of space and he laid out the bouncy air mattress with a frown, wishing that he had not worn his jeans that day. They would not be all that comfortable to sleep in, though he didn't mind too much sharing an evening meal with her, eating chicken wings and chips from one of the food stalls, though he was sure that they had gotten a pretty big discount from Mercy working there.

Mercy had a narrow cot to sleep on in the tent, the tent set up as if she was a knight, though with a few modern comforts too, like a fully-charged portable battery for her phone and tablet computer. There were a few books in a basket towards the back too, though he had not taken her to be all that much of a reader when they had both lived together. The difference there was that Mercy had more free time there, clearly, and less access to technology, when she needed to keep it both charged and running.

It was a different way of living and one that required a little more sense paid to how an individual was using their resources. Privately, Mark marvelled at how she had been able to make all that work for herself. It was truly impressive.

He had protested a little, of course, about how he didn't think that he should have been staying there, that he didn't want to impose on her space... Mark didn't think that Mercy heard him at all. He was going to stay the night, whether he was totally on board with it or not.

"Hey..."

Lying on the airbed, the base of it squeaking faintly as Mark shifted his weight, he called her attention.

"Hm?"

Mercy didn't sound sleepy at all. On the contrary, she sounded completely wide awake, as if she didn't usually sleep that early. But didn't she have to be up early in the morning too to get prepared?

Some things did not have answers at that moment, no. But that was okay too, for all would be revealed in good time.

"Did you get a boyfriend then?" He asked quietly. "Like all the others thought."

He didn't think it was a joke. Or, if it had been a joke, there was more to it than what he had anticipated.

"No... Well..." Mercy seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts before answering. "I had a few guys, yes... A girl too. You knew I swung both ways though."

"Huh... I always thought you would end up more into femfurs," he confessed, a smile tugging faintly at the feline's lips. "With all the martial arts and stuff, all the sporty things you were into... I don't mean that to be stereotypical but...hm... Maybe I made too many assumptions."

"Heh... Yeah, maybe, but that's alright. You weren't ever a dick about it," she said easily. "I like both, my tastes go back and forth."

There was a pause before Mercy continued.

"What about you? Did you get a girlfriend?"

"Me? Oh, no," he said, a hint of a chuckle in the back of his tone. "I didn't have time. I mean, there was Sarah back in school but I just had a few dates after that, a few hang outs. Nothing really stuck."

"Really?" Her tone grew curious. "Didn't you...you know...have one-night stands and things like that? Friends with benefits?"

Oof...

The conversation was getting rather intimate for him, the sort of thing that, frankly, Mark would have shied away from if he had been given the choice. Yet it felt okay, kind of, to talk about that stuff with Mercy. She was his sister, after all...

Yet others had thought that he was her boyfriend. And there was something more to be dug into there, surely.

"Yeah, I got with a few. They were...okay, but nothing stuck, you know? It just didn't feel right to take into a relationship."

"I get that, I'm about the same," Mercy said. "You need a connection to enjoy sex, I think. And a relationship can't be just going out for food, going to the movies, doing this and doing that... Even with someone who's into the same things as you. You can do all that and still be as lacking in connection as ever..."

"That's really deep."

"For me?"

"For anyone, Mercy, really..."

There was a long pause after that, though it did not feel uncomfortable in the slightest. It was soft and it was something that he could sink into, something that honestly he had not had in too long.

"It's good to have you around again, Mercy," he said. "I want... I don't want to be so out of touch again."

"We won't be out of touch again, brother," she said. "Don't worry..."

He believed her, of course, because it was Mercy who said it. Mercy always meant what she said. So did he, though he was a quieter sort than she was. Maybe because his older sister had always been there to fight many of his battles for him, standing tall and proud, her shoulder blades pushed back as if she was charging into the fray, all at his stead.

"So, you ever done anything...you know..." Her tone dropped an octave and he could almost imagine just how her whiskers were quivering, becoming ever so slightly more suggestive. "Different? With the girls you were with?"

He gulped, blushing hard.

"Ah...well... No... There's a... I'm quite normal, really."

"It's alright to like different things, you know. It's about having fun with someone that you connect with, that you relate to. And there's a lot you can try too..."

He chuckled.

"Are you trying to give me sex advice?" He said, the darkness allowing the word to come out when he would have otherwise preferred to use other terms to say the same thing. "Sis, I'm good, really..."

He wouldn't have usually called her that, thinking that saying "brother" and "sister" too much could be overdone. But it felt right, at that time, for him to consider something a little more, a little rebuilding of the bond and connection between them that Mercy had mentioned. Just not, well, in a romantic context as she had been referring to.

But why was his stomach so hot, stirring and pooling, pressing his thighs together? He grunted, trying to cover the sound that he made with his arm.

"Did you..." He chanced a question, pressing into uncharted territory. "Did you do more stuff then? Like you're saying?"

"Mm... Yeah, I tried to have fun, try new things. You know how bored I get with the same old thing all the time. But, I guess, like combat, I found what I really like and stuck with it after a while."

There was a part of Mark that thought that he really should have listening to something like that. He shouldn't have been interested but...maybe it was okay. Maybe that was the sort of thing that they could have talked about earlier as brother and sister if they had not both fled the family home so quickly.

Things hadn't been great back then. They had pushed away from home and tried to cling onto one another to be closer than ever - and it just hadn't worked.

"I did go...all out after leaving home," Mercy admitted, though her tone was soft with fond remembrance. "I did a lot, saw a lot, had more partners than I really should have had. I was lucky that I didn't get into a bad situation with casual sex but I had some fantastic friends back then. They always made sure that I didn't get into trouble and I had them to watch my back. I did for them too, but they weren't as closeted as I'd been."

Mark made a sound of agreement. He couldn't imagine being with so many others, however, not truly... He had been with those quick things and...that relationship. But it hadn't really meant anything and that was what had been missing from all except one.

Mercy was still talking, however.

"I'm kind of a top," she said, the sheets rustling as if she was turning and trying to check out his reaction, though the darkness of the tent secluded things from view. "I like being in charge, in control. But I like looking after a partner too."

"So..." He grappled with the idea, though it was not unfamiliar to him - just in the context of his sister. "A top? A domme? Is that the right word?"

"Yeah, depends on what scene you're in, what you're thinking... There are different words for it, some guys like different terms and that's fine. I never felt right if I was just being passive. Safe words were pretty important though and that's good. I'm lucky too that I picked up on those things at an earlier stage in all that."

He took a breath. If she had confessed then...didn't it go both ways for a similar one, kind of to come from him?

They were being more open with one another, truthfully, than they had ever been before. The silence and the darkness, the softness of ease between them, just made everything come simply and easily, as if it was all supposed to be like that, just like that. He shook his head, catching the light wisp of her tail brushing against the edge of the cot. Even that tiny sound was soothing to his ears.

"You know... I wasn't entirely honest about the sexual experiences thing... Who I was with." He forced the words out, even though he didn't know why he felt like he had to confess. "I didn't really do much with anyone but...I... I had one fling, one longer one, which... Which was good, very good."

"Oh, yeah? Didn't it work out, brother?"

He sighed, brushing his fingers back through the fur between his ears.

"No... No. But...I liked her, like, a lot. We got into some things and she was really strong in the bedroom. She made me feel like I could do anything, though it was better when I was... When I was on my knees before her. I kinda found out...through roleplay and stuff...that I liked being told what to do."

"What, like being submissive?"

He blushed, glad that his sister couldn't see his face, even though his fur would have hidden most of his embarrassment anyway.

"Yeah... Yeah, like that."

There was a longer span of silence and he exhaled softly. It felt better now that it was out there, though he wondered if anything would ever again be said between them after that moment, on the sexual subject. He didn't even know how that sort of thing had come over them in the first place, for it was perhaps not the kind of thing that they should have been so open with one another about.

But they couldn't hide everything away forever, no, as much as he might have liked to. As much as Mark had held things close for so long, tucking away his fears where no one but him could find them.

Along with that came the vulnerability too. And he didn't quite know how to be vulnerable.

If only Mark knew just how that set the gears in Mercy's head turning, though he could never have been privy to that, no. Not unless it came from her lips, for it was not as if he could see into her mind.

"So...do you think that you would like a relationship like that again?" She probed lightly, though he could feel the intensity of her focus even then. "With someone like...her."

He had not, of course, revealed that name to her. That one was for Mark to hold close to his heart, for it had been important to him, for the things that the relationship had revealed to him.

"Hm... I don't know, I'm not sure if I could trust someone like that again," he said softly, as if he was afraid to raise his voice too much. "I really... I really liked her. Dunno if I loved her, we just couldn't find a way to work past other differences. It wasn't that long of a relationship, to be fair. Others that I just hung out with didn't click like her."

"And what if you could trust someone like that again?"

He sighed.

"I guess... Yeah, that would be really nice. I wanted to, y'know, click with someone in the bedroom too, as well as in other ways."

It seemed that that connection was important for them both, having someone that really "got" them and what they were all about, even though they were still in their early twenties. Truthfully, they still had plenty of time in which to figure it out.

But Mercy was hasty and impatient. Her mind had always worked so quickly, jumping from one thing to the next, and she was not the sort of cougar to be set aside even when others said that she was not all that smart. She was just as intelligent as Mark, if not even more so, but her mind did not quite work the same as his.

Which was why she led him down the path that she did, seeing just where things could go, step by step and moment by moment.

There was no other way to go, even if she saw a future that Mark could not.

He only felt the moment, the strange pull that was in his gut, tugging him closer and closer towards his sister. He wanted to be with her and he wanted to do more, to share more of his life with her. He wished that they had never had to move out and apart when they had.

"Maybe someone should take you in hand then, Mark," she all but purred, startling him with the rolling thrum of her voice. "And show you all that you're missing out on. You say you've done a few things, here and there... But maybe you need someone to really show you, someone experienced. Someone that can teach you."

He gulped and blushed hard, throwing his arm up over his face. His insides knotted up with embarrassment, though there was only so much that he could do, for there was nowhere for him to hide, not as he lay there, wishing that she had not put that tone on with him.

Heavens... It did weird things to him. Weird things that he had not felt in months. Not since he and...his ex-girlfriend had split up. That still hurt, even if it had been mutual. It had been for the best...

And now he was there in Mercy's tent sharing secrets and intimacy that he had never thought could be possible.

"Uh... I don't think... Sheesh, Mercy, we've probably gone..."

"Ohhh," Mercy chuckled, her amusement building into a sharp bark of laughter. "No, no, no, I'm not implying... Brother, you are ridiculous!"

Yet her tone did not imply as if it was ridiculous at all, for there had been that solid tone of conviction in it. There was a disconnect between them, in that moment, but it somehow felt as if it had been put there deliberately, as if it had somehow been manufactured. As if Mercy had interjected in just that way to make sure that nothing further could be said about it.

But it did kind of sound like she had meant that she should take him in hand...

No, no! That was not a line of thought that he at all needed to go down! Hell, she was his sister! That was crazy and he had misconstrued her tone. She was just being Mercy, the way that Mercy had always been, digging into topics that had been fraught before, all to see just what she could get into, what she could draw on to explore and experiment. It made sense - especially with all that she had told him. Honestly, Mark still could barely even believe that Mercy had done so much. Even thinking of her topping someone made him blush and shove his head back under the sheets that had been given to him for that night, hiding just how his whiskers quivered and how badly he blushed.

"Unff..." He groaned, faking a yawn and leaning hard into it. "It's...really late... It's good to talk again, but..."

"Hah, yeah, I got it. That got weird, it's all good. Goodnight, brother!"

Was that a smile he detected in her voice? No, no... It could not be. He was being silly, genuinely so, and their words had just gotten ever so slightly fudged as they went back and forth between one another. That was not to be helped, not as the cougars worked out where they stood with one another once again, just where the lines of their relationship lay.

It was just a mishap, he was sure. Just a slip of the tongue. They shouldn't have been talking about stuff like that anyway and they just got their wires crossed. Not a problem - everything would be back to their new normal, learning about each other and hanging out, in the morning.

Slipping into a fitful sleep, he didn't know that Mercy was hardly sleeping well on the cot either, tossing and turning when the cougar really could have used a good night of sleep before the show began.

But it was too late for that.

Continued in part three...