FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Mase the chout awoke from a completely rubbish so-called night's sleep. Groggy and ill at ease, the teenage caudal sat irritably up among the dishevelment of his bed sheets. He flicked his russet tail-plume out of the way so that he could draw his heels up to his backside, keen but unable to dispel the restlessness he felt tugging at his mind and body like ants dismembering a carcass.

He'd woken perhaps a dozen times, huffed and turned and heaved, fidgeted with the sheet corners and punched his pillow, as if that would somehow help him to nod off. But none of it had helped; he didn't feel rested. Not by a long way.

Mase had felt the impulse building the previous evening but had tried not to pay attention. Bad mistake. This morning it scratched within him, feeling so much more powerful than it ever had the year before, when it had been a ghost of what it was now.

It'd developed; he'd finally matured. He was a fully-grown hob at last - for all the dubious delight that was supposed to give him.

And no father to show me the way, he thought sourly, folding his arms against the north-facing cold of his room and pulling restlessly at the ginger fur on his elbows. He sat for a moment and fumed over the unfairness of it. The anger was a well-worn path to him, old and so familiar it couldn't have been more boring. But somehow it still had the intensity to burn, and probably would for a very long time.

Fine then, he thought, simple imperative pushing the anger away for the moment. He looked down at the sheets which barely covered his lap. They were the nearest thing to white in the room, although they were greying and bobbled with age, not to mention covered with Mase's own gradual fur sheddings and smelling of his other, various bodily residues. If I have to learn it myself, I have to.

The night just gone, trapped passively under his bed sheets, he'd been able to do nothing about the longing. But morning had come and now he was able to act. He got up, resentfully throwing the bed sheets aside. Part of him thought he should probably straighten them out a bit, but his urges insisted that he didn't have time.

Hackles rising as much in response to the early chill as the severity of his drive, he crossed the bedroom to get dressed. He picked up the pair of combats he'd worn the day before from the surface of his battered, cheap wooden storage unit - topped with scratches and pencil marks and drink splashes - and pulled them on impatiently, buttoning up above his tail before tending to the fly.

Then he left his bedroom, with its shit-green paintwork and threadbare grey carpet. He slammed the door, shutting off from sight of the scrape marks on the walls and the dark grey mould spots on the ceiling, the fluff-balls at the edges of the floor, the small clods of ginger fur and the general scatter of rubbish. Everything, in short, that reminded him that he had nobody but himself to rely on, and what a half-cocked job he did of that.

He had work to do.

Chout work.

xXx

Ten minutes later he arrived at the field two streets down from his flat. He'd brought a rucksack which he'd slung over one angular chout shoulder, containing a fistful of canvas bags and a large pair of scissors. He was ready.

Very ready.

Oh, he was prepared, he had the kit for sure. But that wasn't what ready meant.

He was ready in that he had the desire. A need that clenched within him, scrabbling like a caged feral, snarling and howling, desperate to be let loose. And faced with this field of grass, all this elegant, strong, dry, swaying grass, it was all he could do not to panic.

Because he had scarce knowledge of what to do after he'd harvested the stuff. His wants getting the better of him, he strode forward into the field and felt simultaneously relaxed and galvanised by the bat-bat-bat of developing spikelets against his thighs. He took one more step to kick up the smell of pollen and shivered with nervous delight.

This heightened rush settling, he glanced around the field; he wasn't alone. Other adult male chouts - hobs - were there, their rich orange tails raised as they bent down to cut the enticing, swishing grass. Attentive ears were tipped in concentration of the task; ginger brows were lowered with urgency, and perhaps jealousy. The occasional hob stood to stretch his back, only to bend back down and resume his task with renewed vigour. A horde of individuals, gathered together but all ignoring one another.

It was every chout for himself.

Mase dislodged his rucksack and pulled the opening as wide as it would go. Then he took out the bags out and half-tucked them into his waistband, then fished out the scissors. Searching his immediate surroundings for a suitably thick clump, he set to work under the light, early summer sun.

xXx

It is hard to tell, when one begins a task in a state of complete emotional immersion, how long it takes to finish it.

And so it was for Mase. The job of gathering grass temporarily calmed him, allowed him to focus his drive. Never had he taken such an interest in the stuff! Never before had he noticed the seductive whisper of stem against stem, the warm scent of chaff dust, the tantalisingly smooth texture of a healthy thatch, the green-ness of it. He'd felt the reproductive need before; he was familiar enough with that. But now the unrest had blossomed, became less confused. Separated from the sexual urge.

Developed into the fully-fledged weaving instinct of an adult male chout.

Eventually - was he a quick gatherer, he wondered, or a slow one? He hadn't paid attention to the others so couldn't judge - he hurried home, his rucksack and canvas bags heavy with tightly-packed grass, the scissors in his pocket. He felt strangely furtive, and he was desperate to get home and touch the grass. To turn it in his hands, to make strands into solid shapes.

Desperate to get weaving.

xXx

It was with an almost - no, actual - feverish intensity that Mase hurried to unlock his front door and struggled through his hallway. He dropped the bags, pulled the key out of the lock and kicked the door shut. Wasting no time he hefted them through - passing his kitchen, which normally he looked after so well, but hadn't even stood in to eat breakfast this morning and didn't give so much as a glance - to deposit them outside the back door, in his claustrophobically small rear garden.

He looked at the square of concrete and fence that was to be his canvas, the little space where he could weave his first nest in private, away from those who wryly referred to the intense desire he currently felt as weaver fever.

And then he experienced the bizarre trauma of not knowing how to start.

Grinding his teeth with need, he took a handful and marched over to the back fence, a netted wire surface on which he tied his anchor-knot. Is this too low? Was he meant to start above head-level..? He wasn't sure.

The handful was too thick!

Cursing with frustration, he threw a portion of the bunch to the ground and tried again, frowning furiously. Tying them the way his instincts dictated - Around the hook, cross... Yes... Double-back-and-through-the-loop... Pull, and pull, and- Yes! - gave him a tantalising sense of satisfaction and he began to feel that he might relax.

Right before his weaving instinct asserted itself again.

Build on the knot!

How could a hob explain? The andros of all the other nine species of Palantis understood the biological urge to have sex. Of course they did. It was nature. But only male chouts knew about the other breeding urge: the desire to nest-build. And it was powerful. Chouts were frequently granted compassionate leave from work to get their weaving impulses out of their systems. The other species had long-since campaigned for more paid days off, and a compromise had eventually been made whereby everybody got a few extra days' leave, and the chouts used those days tying knots rather than relaxing. And then bartering with their colleagues for all the easy, danger-free chores when they first returned and the fever still kept its hold on their minds.

Palantean modern history.

Thankfully, weaver fever only lasted around three weeks.

It seemed like none of the other species understood it. Sylken were known to become territorial during their traditional breeding season, but they described nothing as specific, or intense, as the weaving urge. Odd, considering they had once been nesters themselves.

And what about the strange, exotic tectons? Surely any creature that looked like that had to have odd habits? Their sex rituals were weird enough (if they wanted to get pregnant, anyway). But even they knew nothing of oddball desires such as nest-building.

So for around three weeks a year the hobs worked, commanded by an obsolete biological desire to construct elaborate nests with chambers and tunnels, chimneys and... a-and v-ventilation holes, side rooms and hairpins. S-s-strategic exi... exits and, and-and-and hinged covers and decorative patterns! Thickened prevailing wind-si-side w-walls a-and bridges and s-su-sup.. supporting st-struts...

It gave Mase a dry mouth just thinking about it.

Shelves!

Wasn't it obvious?

Shelves should be possible! Why not?

Shelves...

To the weaving chout, any excuse to set his busy fingers to work was a blessing, as much a respite from the torture as a continuation of it.

But for Mase Papertree, it all started with this first nesting season with his first, clumsy and unplanned attempt.

xXx

It turned out unexpectedly badly.

Unexpectedly, insofar as a more experienced hob would have suggested to Mase that he seek a quiet spot in the woods and find a horizontal, overhanging branch so that he could start at the top and build downwards. Starting with a ceiling would make things easier. By building the ceiling first he could make gravity work for him, as the nest itself and his own constant tugging and pulling would tighten the knot.

That same hob, only trying to be helpful, might also have suggested that Mase intertwine a handful of strong spokes into his starting knot and weave on those, creating a bowl which he could extend, and curve, until it became a roof.

But Mase would have told him to fuck off.

Therefore, Mase didn't 'expect' the nest to develop into an untidy, hole-ridden tangle. Were he freed of the weaver fever and given a rational head he might have guessed he'd get it wrong, but he needed to believe he could do this. He needed to weave, and he wanted - oh, how badly he wanted - to make a nest.

Just a simple, spherical one. With an entrance hole. He could build another one if that worked out, in the opposite corner.

Corner! The thought was akin to a scream. I should have started in the corner! More support! But the idea to leave his initial effort was sickening. He had to continue. He couldn't give up.

And he couldn't accept that he wasn't doing very well.

Which was why, when the light began to fade, he stood fuming in front of a tangle of grass tied to the fence.

Despite his still-rampant weaving urge he turned and stormed indoors, trembling and starving and needy.

xXx

The following morning he ventured back outside, ready to face his fucked-up weaving effort again. It was early: the concrete ground felt both numbingly and painfully cold on the soles of Mase's unprotected feet; small stones and grit dug into them. But he ignored the discomfort - he didn't even curl the dense luxury of his tail around them to warm them up.

His attention was mostly elsewhere.

The path beyond the chain fence was unlit and damp, the wall a dirt-speckled, textured yellow and the ground tiled with red blocks; dark muck had long been packed into the spaces between. The fence itself - his loosely-woven, metal canvas - stood still, although soon it would begin to rattle again as he pulled at the nest, building it.

Building it! The words filtered through him with a shudder of desire. He strode forward and set to work on the dull green - and it turned out, dew-damp - nest.

It would probably have helped if he'd managed to get some sleep. It would probably also have helped if he hadn't been so frantic, all night long, with the need to weave that he'd been able to calm down and plan his next move properly.

But it was too late for that. Plans would have to be made before the fever struck again, the following year.

As it was, the mass of partly tightly-woven, partly loose grass stood proud of the fence in an untidy ball, a displeasing sight to the russet seventeen-year-old who stood glaring at it, fists balled and digging petulantly into his bony hips. Maybe if I build out from the edges, he thought, fighting to settle his impatience, I'll be able to start making a wall.

So he did. Out he built. Out, and out, and out. Furry ginger fingers manipulating living green threads; pulling, looping, threading; the industrious rattle and clang of the fence. The sheer pleasure of making something flat instead of shaped like a lump of destrier shit encouraged him and tentatively, his mood improved as he thought, Maybe I can do this.

But what he didn't take into account was the extra pressure all of this put on the anchor knot.

His weaving efforts had extended about one and a half arms' length away from the knot when it finally came loose. The leverage exerted by the outer parts of the wall, plus the pressure he kept putting on it in the act of weaving finally became too much, and the whole thing came free - with a complacently self-satisfied b-b-b-o-o-i-i-n-n-g-g-g from the fence - in his hands.

It was probably a good thing there was no experienced, older male chout around to witness his response. Mase, in hindsight, would probably not have been proud.

"FUCK!" he bellowed and kicked the offending grass-mass across the garden, his tail swinging abruptly behind him to keep balance.

He rounded on the fence and punched it - and sharp pain splintered through his hand. Mase growled and lodged his smarting fist under his arm, clenching his teeth and ignoring the electric chill against them. The fence rattled and jarred but retaliated no further, quickly settling to stillness as the young chout hissed curses, nursing his bruised knuckles and hunching his back against a rapidly-descending sense of hopelessness.

Stupid! he thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Frustrated beyond all measure, he picked up the woven mass and hurled it against the house wall with a mangled growl that came somewhere between "shit" and "fuck". Grass fragments flew up around him, twirling in the air like arrogant ballerinas, mocking him as they span. Look at Mase! they tittered to each other. He's so stupid!

There was more fury but Mase managed to rein in his temper at that point. Surrounded by the loose fibres that were now still, he stood motionless and allowed his anger to subside, little by little. The length of his tail felt prickly, the hackles raised. But he didn't look at it, only felt the slow re-laying of his fur, picturing the colour changing from a deepened russet to the usual lighter, flattened red-brown.

He remembered the grass strands had flown up into the air and felt the top of his head. He pulled off a couple of stems, and then almost guiltily brushed a final one off his shoulder. The gripping action hurt his knuckle slightly and he examined it again.

There was no blood - just a bit of swelling.

Then he walked over to the ball and picked it up, then sat on the brick steps to his flat. There, he painstakingly picked the nest loose and when he finished that, started to build again.

From scratch.

xXx

Hay, unravelled from an old nest and woven a second time, is not as strong. Mase learned this during his second attempt. It was a commendable effort considering his state of mind, but his second attempt was never going to be much good.

Un-picking his initial 'nest' had taken most of the day. He'd re-tied his anchor knot in the evening with a handful of unused strands, picked up off the floor, and begun to weave around that, his whole body buzzing with exhaustion.

When it finally became too dark for him to see what he was doing, he trudged indoors, resentful of his relentlessness, and went to sleep.

Copyright © Hayley Deakin