The Silver Nautilus

Story by turrusebonwater on SoFurry

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Freelance travel writer Mark Tracy explores the unfinished Silver Nautilus Resort, only to discover that things aren't what they seem.


Mark was aware that the uncomfortable feeling in his chest was not, in fact, heartburn at all. It was the sensation of his journalistic integrity being squeezed in a vise. No, perhaps it was being handled like overripe fruit; things could turn out fine, but it all depended on the one inspecting the produce.

It had been six months since Dubai. Six months since he, a freelance travel writer who detested the hotter climates, had visited a spot that owed its very existence to the miracle of air conditioning. For him, that miracle had stopped working in the middle of the night, and he'd woken up in a puddle of his own sweat.

Mark had not been kind to that hotel. Lately when he could justify the lavish expense of a cup of coffee with free WiFi on the side he'd watched the other reviews for the 'Sun Palace' slowly pile up. His fellow travel writers had inspected the wounds he'd inflicted with that article like military surgeons. Amidst all the poking and prodding and harrumphing, gangrene had set in. The place would likely never make a profit.

"How much longer?!" he asked over the whine of the engines.

Mark had never ridden in a hydrofoil before today, and now he knew why; it was quite possible that they were the most terrifying machines ever to take to the sea.

The ferret at the controls merely pointed, and Mark could just make out a squat, silvery structure in the far distance. It looked like the head of a pin stuck in the middle of the ocean. Mark made a note of that, first impressions were very important when traveling.

His furless pink paw scribbled madly on his notebook in the weightless periods when the hydrofoil wasn't threatening to throw him over the side. He added more detail as the pin-head became a hubcap, and finally something resembling the Sydney Opera House more than anything else.

The Silver Nautilus was exactly what it was, a grandiose, ultramodern shell-shaped building. Mark, who'd been keeping up with every tiny information leak that came out of the place, knew that the part they were approaching at breakneck speed was practically the definition of 'tip of the iceberg'. Just the lobby, really.

He was thankful to get off the boat. There was an embarrassing minute when his knees wouldn't stop shaking, but the crew of the hydrofoil was already deep in the somber ritual of their smoke break and took no further notice of the brown mouse in the cargo shorts.

Mark knew what odd places unfinished hotels could be. The wide, bright white terrace leading to the building would one day play host to a really beautiful garden, he could already tell. The first flower wouldn't see the sun until all the construction crews were gone.

He put on his critic's expression, a state of mind he hadn't needed in the previous six months of ramen noodles and second-notices on bills. He knew from practicing in front of the bathroom mirror that this face meant 'I am here to judge you! My pen topples empires!'

The way he marched up to the doors on his short little rodent legs still needed work.

Even unfinished, the lobby was a masterpiece. The chromed outer shell of the Nautilus hid thousands of tiny multicolored windows, which speckled the otherwise plain whiteness of the place with a riot of color.

Mark's mouth hung open. The white tigress behind the check-in desk could have walked around and closed it for him in the time it took for him to finally notice her. She giggled as the mouse plodded the last few yards to where the front desk reached his mid-chest.

"Hi," he managed. His critic's expression had been lost somewhere on the way.

"Mr. Tracy? The journalist?"

"That's me. Er-" He patted the pockets of his floral print shirt until he produced an ID.

The tigress made sure not to show any teeth as she smiled, "No need for that, sir. You're the only member of the press we're allowing on board. If you'll follow me we can get to the part I'm sure you've been waiting for."

She clearly had no problems wandering away from the desk; their best estimates said that it would be at least a year before members of the public would set foot there.

"The elevators are this way, Mr. Tracy."

~*~

'I, Mark Tracy, am writing to you from a hundred feet below the surface of the ocean.'

Mark flicked his pencil around and savagely erased the sentence. For the first time in his career, not having a camera felt like torture.

'I, Mark Tracy, will be moving to this hotel as soon as a suitable offer is made for my eternal soul and all my worldly possessions.'

That felt more honest.

He'd dropped his notebook and pencil on the floor about ten seconds into the elevator ride. Next to him the smiling tigress had been painted blue by light shining through the crystal clear water all around them, dappled patterns playing with her black stripes.

The rest was a blur. There had been a towering kelp forest not far off, like a housing project for ten thousand fish. There had been the way the light from below swiss-cheesed its way through more tiny windows up towards him in every color he could think of. For a glorious minute the three underwater shell buildings of the living quarters, entertainment plaza, and spa had almost seemed to spiral underneath his feet.

Now he was sitting at one of many mostly-finished little lounge bars that ringed the elevator banks, thoughtfully engineered for newcomers like him who just couldn't seem to take it all in.

"Hello Mark."

He flinched. He'd been thinking for a minute or two that he was the only living soul around. The construction noises did not carry very far.

A figure folded itself into the seat next to him, a little indistinct as Mark's eyes adjusted from the lines of his nearly empty but thoroughly eraser-smudged notebook.

An otter smiled back at him, dressed in loose rough silk pants and a shirt of the lightest turquoise. The other male had delicate white fur, not the dense coat of other brown otters he'd met, and eyes as pink as a growth of coral he'd seen on the trip down.

"Call me Iva. I've read your work, and your thoughts on first impressions. So... what do you think?"

"You seem nice," said Mark, before he could stop himself. "I mean- it's incredible. This place." He gestured around helplessly, suddenly feeling like an imbecile.

Iva nodded, somehow seeming to blend in with the decorations in progress around him. "I designed everything you've seen so far. You might call it my life's work."

"Is everyone who works here going to have white fur?"

"Hm?"

Mark blushed, his lack of subtlety served him well as a journalist, but not so well in other situations. "Er-"

The albino otter's long whiskers twitched as his smile brightened. "Oh, you mean Tanya from upstairs. Just a coincidence."

"I clash with everything here," Mark mumbled abruptly.

"Not as badly as you think. But you're not here to be part of my project, are you?"

Mark bit his lip and pictured his overdrawn bank account, then compared it to the astronomical amount of money it must have taken just to get the Nautilus into the state it was. "That depends. Are you hiring bellhops yet?"

Iva appeared to frown just as easily as he smiled. Mark had always thought of otters as slightly goofy looking creatures, but this one's stern look shut him up immediately.

"Mr. Tracy," Iva began, and Mark's own last name seemed to jab him like a knife, "you are the only journalist here because I wanted to impress one person. I wanted to impress the mouse who killed the Sun Palace in Dubai when it was only a few months from opening. You have your integrity and I have mine."

The odd lutrine figure rose to his feet and plucked a room keycard from his pocket, setting it on the countertop with the softest of plastic clicks. "Asking to be a mere porter at my resort means you aim far too low," the other male displayed what Mark thought of as a trademark smile, and his heart unfroze with relief, "Finish your article. Then we'll talk."

Mark's heart skipped a beat as the otter's lengthy tail brushed his calf when he turned away, padding off into the dimly-lit splendor of the incomplete hotel. "Nothing is off limits to you, Mark. Enjoy your stay."

~*~

Through preliminary emails Mark had learned beforehand that his room had been a test design when Iva was still experimenting with the space. The otter had done very well for an early try. He dropped his overnight bag in the middle of the floor on his way to the window, which both hypnotized him and made him uneasy.

Delight at the sight of a huge school of silvery fish clashed viciously with the mental image of a hundred tons of seawater flooding his room and providing a slow, unpleasant death.

Just breathe, he reminded himself, paws on the windows feeling curiously around the edges. Remember the info they sent you. They developed a new kind of plastic just to make this place possible.

Somehow the thought comforted him, even though he assumed it wouldn't. It's not a submarine, dumbass. Cowboy up and take some notes now that you're not scooping your jaw off the floor.

The desk was made of a material he didn't recognize, doing its best to blend in smoothly with the walls, which were beginning to look a lot like real coral. The lamp could have been a real abalone shell too, for all Mark knew.

The more he thought about it the less sense it made, and he was getting too distracted. He slapped a fresh notebook down and started writing before he had time to ponder anything else, particularly the wide, circular, comfortable looking bed not too far behind him.

Hours later he'd whittled his utterly unmanageable block of impressions and thoughts down to something more reasonable. It gave him confidence. He'd need a lot of that over the next couple days.

It slowly dawned on Mark that he'd never been given complete freedom before. In his five years of travel writing there had always been tours; canned spiels by PR gurus who made more money in a week than Mark did in a year just for deciding that he should see the pool before the restaurant. This was very new.

He threw himself onto the bed, yelping as his small frame bobbed up and down slightly on what turned out to be a water mattress.

"Well... that seems sorta tacky," he said out loud before sprawling out as much as he could.

He was back in the saddle, judging other people's weird design decisions for only pennies a day. This was the life.

The curved ceiling was studded with blue sea-glass. Though Mark hadn't bothered to turn the lights off, inspect the shower, or even undress, a minute of discovering swirling patterns above his head put him into a deep sleep.

Nothing is off limits to you, Mark.

Nothing is off limits to you, Mark.

Nothing is off limits to you, Mark.

He was on the other side of the window, only a few feet from the school of fish. Rather than darting away as he swam closer they surged around him instead, entirely unafraid.

I wanted to impress one person.

He blinked, and the school was suddenly distinctly otter shaped. It even had two vivid pink fish for eyes. Another disbelieving blink and Iva himself swam lazily before Mark's eyes, seeming eerily nonchalant as he brushed past him and took his paw.

Mark wanted to protest, to scream, to make sense of how he was outside the building that was keeping him alive with its oxygen pumps and shatterproof windows.

Iva gently eased Mark forward and kissed him, and Mark's fears evaporated. It had the surreal quality of all dream kisses, just enough to make his heart race. Impossibly real, but only for a fraction of a second.

Together they swam higher, until they could see all three of the silvery buildings laid out before them. Mark was dimly aware that even at the surface they wouldn't look that small, not like three tiny shells half buried in white sand.

...you aim far too low.

Iva and Mark revolved slowly in place together; Mark hadn't noticed the otter's nakedness until that moment, nor his own. He hastily hid himself behind his paws, eyes wide with embarrassment and confusion.

His host turned out to have an elaborate blue marking that covered most of his neck and shoulder that Mark hadn't noticed when they met. How could he have missed that?

He got an excellent look when the dream-otter embraced him tightly, long arms hugging around the mouse's slim, bare waist.

With his nose tucked close to Iva's shoulder he could see the intricate lines of shell-shaped patterns, like a fractal eager to spread outwards over the rest of the otter's body. Even as he thought it Mark's imagination became real, and the glimmering blue lines did not stop there. Like a drop of ink in a glass of water his own fur bleached and became sugar white where Iva touched him, and the shell-markings followed slowly after.

...you're not here to be part of my project, are you?

~*~

Sadly the kitchen of the Silver Nautilus was not operational just yet, to say nothing of the staff needed to run it. Fortunately Mark was not remotely hungry when he woke up with his heart jackhammering against his ribcage.

Knowing that he'd eventually collapse if he didn't at least eat something he forced down a doughnut and a cup of coffee, both of which had been provided in generous quantities for the construction crews.

It wasn't supposed to work like this. Sure he'd woken with a jolt in the lavish, unfamiliar room and stumbled around for what felt like five whole minutes until he encountered the light switch; that was actually pretty normal for him. What wasn't normal was that he could remember every detail of his dream.

Mark rarely dreamed at all, and this was one of only a handful he could remember anything about.

He touched the end of a lock of his hair and found it still wet and cold. Workers in high-visibility vests gave him puzzled passing glances.

Get a grip, Tracy.

There had been... another modest irregularity.

Finding the light switch in the blue-tinged semi darkness might have taken a fraction of the time, if he hadn't been a breath away from an intense wet dream when he opened his eyes. Mark had been harrowingly close to an orgasm that would have started his day on an entirely different note.

He remembered the dream, but he barely remembered the shower. He'd peeled off yesterday's clothes pell-mell after fumbling with the controls, stepping right into the icy spray so he wouldn't have to think about how his boxer briefs had felt glued to his groin with precum.

The last words he'd heard in his dream had been impossible to shrug off, even after a cold shower. They were in the same order as when he'd heard them the previous day, but his sleeping brain had twisted Iva's tone so that it dripped with lewd hopefulness.

Mark felt a throb from inside the material of today's black slacks despite his fur's continued clamminess. Clearly his libido felt cheated. The indignity of a six month long dry-spell that started when he boarded the plane to Dubai did not help.

"Mr. Tracy? I wouldn't go down that way without a vest and hard hat, sir."

Mark whipped around and nearly scalded his wrist with what remained of his coffee as it sloshed around in the cup. "Tanya! I was just- damnit, my shirt!"

The tigress brushed much too close to him as she plucked a napkin from the table and held it out to him. Why did she have to smell so good?

She smiled, and it occurred to Mark that even when flashing those considerable feline teeth she looked much more concerned than threatening, "It's very early. Trouble sleeping?"

Mark Tracy prided himself on a good repertoire of easy lies that usually made him appear utterly unflappable when the pressures of life and travel were slowly choking him. He was beginning to suspect that someone or something had confiscated them at the door this time around.

"Can we talk?" he asked, still unsure of how much time and effort she was willing to spend on one confused mouse.

"Of course. Would you mind if we walked, too? I was on my way to the spa shell to check up on things."

Mark had to take two short-legged steps for every one of hers as she idly looked over her clipboard as she walked. "What exactly do you do here, anyway?" Mark asked.

"I wear a few different hats for this project; general facilitator, public relations, lawyer-wrangling sometimes. A lot of the time it just boils down to finding out as much as possible so that I'm the one to ask when people get a little lost." Was that a knowing look she gave him just then?

"I appreciate it." He paused, sacrificing tact to get straight to the point, "What's the deal with Iva?"

"Besides being a little full of himself?"

"There's something else. Sorry to be so vague."

A short curving walk around the central elevator banks past a dozen little boutiques waiting to be staffed and filled brought them to the entrance to the spa shell. Mark had read that it would be the first of the three to be completed.

Tanya's errand turned out to involve checking on the sound systems in each room, where massage tables and empty detoxifying mud bath tubs stood waiting for future visitors.

"Are you worried about what he thinks of you?" She ventured as she toggled the ambient music in one of the last rooms, then left it on and sat on the edge of the massage table.

Mark's mouth went a little dry. He was acutely aware that Tanya was one of the tallest women he'd ever met. Taller than Iva, certainly, and the otter was just shy of six feet tall to begin with.

"No," he asserted, standing there awkwardly, "Not that."

"You're hiding something."

"I swear I'm not!" Mark didn't know whether to back out of the room and cut their conversation short or stick to his guns and continue lying. Being attracted to males as well as females was nothing new, but dreaming about them was.

Tanya let her feet touch the floor again and padded towards him. The next thing he knew he was stretched out on his front on the table, and his freshly coffee-stained shirt was hanging from a hook behind the door.

"Wh-" he started, and the word melted into nothing, like the rest of him as her strong paws started kneading his shoulders.

"Shh," breathed the tigress, who found out quickly that the knots in Mark's muscles had knots of their own.

"Mm," he relented. Any more protest was well beyond his abilities, even after her next question.

"You dreamed about him, didn't you?"

His whole body twitched with shock, but Mark said nothing.

"That ham-fisted, hedonistic lotus-eater," she sighed, "Whatever happened to subtlety, Mark? Whatever happened to finesse?" It was a herculean effort but Mark managed to turn his head enough to see her, and the fractal nautilus-shaped fur marking that spiraled up from her wrist and eventually disappeared into her sleeve and blended with her stripes.

"Muh," he tried, terror and confusion kept at bay by the tigress' ministrations.

"Soon, Mark. You'll understand soon," as she leaned close she brushed the faintest of kisses against his cheek, and Mark's expression went entirely blank. "This little detour will slip your mind, I'm afraid. But you'll feel a lot better."

The young brown mouse was neither asleep nor awake, but the brief fugue state did leave two important impressions:

-Relax

-Room 600, 10pm.

~*~

Mark Tracy wrote several paragraphs about how your mind could play tricks on you underwater, making time seem to pass in an unsettling way. He reasoned that he had just gone back to bed after breakfast, probably from a combination of jet-lag and acclimating to the processed air inside the hotel.

Sleeping that extra few hours had turned out to be a fantastic idea. Mark loved the sort of dreamless slumber-of-the-dead that only complete exhaustion could give him. From the very first stretch after he got out of bed, he was in a golden mood

No tours, no staff giving him treatment that they'd never show to a normal guest, nothing except his own continued fascination with the scenery and the sheer over-the-top notion of an underwater resort. Mark took advantage of Iva's promise for complete access, stepping smartly into construction zones and witnessing the main restaurant first-hand.

'Like being inside a diamond carved into a jellyfish, in the best possible way.' he wrote with a flourish, not caring how stupid it sounded. Generating curiosity was all that mattered.

He'd covered so much ground throughout the rest of the day that by ten at night, long after a quick no-nonsense dinner, wandering up to the sixth floor of the hotel shell seemed very natural.

The keycard that Iva had given him had opened every ordinary lock he came across, and the one on room number 600 was no different. The spell, or whatever it was, broke the second Mark crossed the threshold and stepped into the dark room.

"What the fuck...?"

"Come in and sit down, Mark." The sound of the otter's voice was all Mark's mind needed to start remembering last night's vivid dream.

"Why are you doing this? It's you, right? Or is it Tanya? Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!" Something was dampening Mark's frustration, which only made him angrier at the futility he felt.

Iva was sitting on the round bed in the room that looked almost identical to Mark's, with a key difference or two. The room sported test designs of all the hotel's matching merchandise: linens, furniture upholstery, little notepads and pens too. The trademark nautilus seemed to stare at him from every corner of the room.

"Do you know what a Marid is?"

"No," replied Mark immediately, hoping quick answers would help him get to the point faster.

"It is a kind of Jinn, or Genie, if the word is more recognizable to you."

"I'm not doing a damn crossword you... you freak!" He'd expected to feel a great deal of remorse after blurting that out, but in his agitated state the slur seemed appropriate.

"Why are you mad at me, Mark?" The bright pink eyes that glimmered at him like little garnets from the middle of the room looked genuinely hurt.

"You hypnotized me! Or... something! What the hell was that dream about, huh? And why on earth are you talking about genies?!" His fury was losing steam fast. Iva was hanging his head and supporting it with his paws.

"Dreams about Janissaries are always very vivid and memorable, but we can't just make them happen. Whatever it was you dreamed was still entirely in your subconscious. However, our master is most likely responsible for at least some of your confusion." The albino looked up guiltily, but managed a mere shadow of a smile. "It's too bad. I was hoping you'd join us without his interference."

"Your master? What's a Janissary?" Mark swallowed a lump in his throat as he finally padded across the room to the chair not far from the bed and sat down.

"Genie slaves. Tanya and I work on behalf of a very powerful Marid. This whole resort is his idea." Iva slid forward a few inches, and the blanket he'd been holding tight around his shoulders fell away. Mark didn't have to look closely to see the nautilus-shaped markings that covered most of the otter's shoulder and part of his neck.

"That marking... it's a slave brand? That's horrible!"

"Not as horrible as you might imagine. I learned that 'Freedom' and 'Slavery' are very troublesome concepts in the long run. We all have our Masters in some form or another." Iva's muzzle broke into an honest smile, "Mine granted me nearly unlimited resources so I could make my dreams into reality. You wouldn't understand what that feels like."

"Where do I fit in with all this?" Mark realized he was on the edge of his seat.

"You are the catalyst that will bring people here. We invited you to the Nautilus hoping to offer you a position as a consultant, of sorts. After you submitted your last, greatest article." The white otter reached out and pulled one of the bed's decorative pillows into his lap, hiding most of his half-naked torso.

"Am I part of your master's plan too, then?"

"Not originally. I had hoped you would be part of mine."

For a long minute or two there was just the silence of the ocean around them. The more Mark thought about it, the more sense it made. He rose to his feet and timidly stepped up to the edge of the bed so he could sit closer.

"I'm scared. That dream... about you... it was really all me?"

The pale water dweller squeezed one of the mouse's smaller paws in both of his own. "Someday you'll have to tell me about this dream. But nothing needs to happen right now."

Mark bit his lip, remembering the arousal and desperate feeling of need he'd woken up to early that morning. "You're wrong."

"That's a first," the otter said playfully as he leaned in and drew the slight, skinny frame of the brown mouse towards him.

Mark's slacks, shirt, and underwear vanished into the darker edges of the room as the lights dimmed. Iva's thin pants followed when Mark took a momentary break from running his paws up and down the otter's chest.

Gentle webbed fingers slid around Mark's developing erection, coaxing it to life before Iva twisted to press their arousals belly to belly and squeeze them tight in a single fist. Mark already felt a little familiar with his new companion's body, but realized that Iva hadn't had the chance to see him in the buff until now. His obvious approval made the mouse blush.

"Go easy, it's been awhile."

Iva combined an affectionate nuzzle against the side of Mark's neck with an acknowledging bob of his head before pulling his new lover in for a kiss. The fraction of a second that Mark had felt the previous night stretched into long minutes of curious tongues and brief but intense love-bites.

Mark gasped as their lips eventually parted and stilled Iva's stroking paw with a strong squeeze to his wrist. "Wait. Mnnff. Almost ruined the moment there."

The otter's voice was a quiet, warm rumble right next to his ear that came awfully close to ruining it anyway. "Just keep breathing." Just hearing him made Mark shudder with delight. The stroking paw vanished, returning shortly with a generous dollop of slippery lube that Iva shared between them.

"Aah! I said wait! I don't want to cum yet." Mark fully expected to feel the sudden rush of pleasure that would hit him just before he peaked, but instead he seemed to have stamina to spare.

"You won't. Don't worry."

Through a haze of bliss Mark could see Iva's fur-tattoo glowing bright enough to illuminate the bed with soft blue light, which pulsed in time with the throbs of his own arousal. Perhaps there were benefits of being a Janissary worth hearing about after all.

"You've got to teach me that one sometime. Ooh!" He writhed as the paw that had generously lubed both of them up snuck down to the crease of his backside. Iva's intentions couldn't have been clearer.

When Mark was prepared to the otter's satisfaction he gathered his slender little rodent frame into his lap, helpfully placing Mark's paws on his pale shoulders. Iva's hips rolled upwards and gave the mouse's rear a slick, hot jab with something pleasantly pointed and smooth.

He took the hint, hunkering lower and blushing as he reached back to guide the otter's shaft inside. Iva groaned deliciously at his tightness, but as Mark stretched around the thick malehood sliding up inside him the pain he expected was entirely absent. The pair entwined tightly as their rhythm began, Mark suppressing a delighted shiver the first time his shaft rubbed up against the silky fur of the mustelid's chest and belly.

With no fear of being overheard they groaned and praised one another endlessly, the bed and soon the whole room growing warmer as they coupled harder and more desperately. After a dizzying change of position Mark was flat on his back, hugging Iva's waist with his legs as his lutrine lover approached his climax.

"Do it. Aahhh... Please Iva, please!"

"Your wish- Nngh! ...is my command."

Six months proved to be worth the wait. The sensation of the toe-curling last nudge against his prostate was soon followed by the sticky blossoming warmth that sent Iva trembling above him, steadying one paw on the bed while the other pawed the mouse to his own messy peak. Whatever extra reserves Iva had been granting him had vanished as the first of a dozen sticky ropes of mouse cum painted his stomach and chest. The last thing he recalled before briefly losing consciousness was arching his back and tasting a warm pearly streak that had shot high enough to reach the corner of his mouth.

Iva chuckled as his eyes slid shut, "White looks good on you."

Mark awoke later to the divine sensation of a broad, rough tongue cleaning the streaks of seed from his chest. He couldn't have been out for more than a minute, they hadn't dried. Some even still felt warm.

"Hello Tanya. Very kind of you." He stretched, surprised he hadn't pulled a muscle sometime during the night's course of events.

The nude white tigress didn't pay him any mind until he was completely groomed, and even then she only gave him an affectionate smile.

"Something's different."

Iva was stretched out next to him, a content expression on his pale muzzle. It looked like Tanya had already finished with him. "I've only told you one lie, Mark. It was a small one. You'll get used to it."

Tanya helped the exhausted mouse prop his head up a little as he leaned against the tops of her striped thighs, staring down at his recently groomed fur.

"...oh." He tilted his head side to side a little, then rolled his narrow shoulders in a shrug. "Actually, I like it."

~*~

One year later to the day, the Silver Nautilus Resort opened and received the first guests who'd jumped at the chance to get on the waiting list.

Rolling luggage in tow, a young wealthy couple on their honeymoon approached the front desk. They'd just enjoyed a leisurely walk through the flower garden outside the lobby, happy to stretch their legs after the hydrofoil ride.

A young mouse in an impeccably sharp white uniform that matched his fur stood waiting for them, shaking each of them by the hand and expressing his own personal congratulations before checking their reservations.

"It must be amazing to work here," remarked one recently-wed ocelot, waving her paw in the splashes of color cast by the tiny high windows.

Mark's smile beamed even in the brightly-lit lobby as he handed them a schedule of activities, subconsciously rubbing the nautilus-shaped marking under his uniform coat with his other hand.

"It's a fantasy come true, ma'am. Enjoy your stay."

~ The End

(Not sure this'll pop up on anyone's radar, but I've been calling myself a writer on FA for long enough to feel guilty about never actually posting anything. Hope at least a few people get some enjoyment out of it. Interior of the nautilus mostly inspired by this awesome design. All comments appreciated.)

2012-01-24 16:18:25