FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This macro/tf/paw story was a request on FA.

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11:30 PM. A cold blue light illuminated the man's squinting countenance.

Jeff tapped a button on the side of his cell phone to put it to sleep once again. Slipping the device back into his pocket, he inhaled deeply and arched his back. 11:30. But it was 11:25 an hour ago!

The young businessman never did like flying, but as a globetrotting high-achiever he had little choice. Jeff had jetted off to Europe earlier that week to close a deal in Copenhagen. After successfully charming his clients, he spent the weekend indulging in the cosmopolitan capital's nightclubs and women (and nearly stumbling into one of its many canals). Jeff was coming back home to the States before the workweek began anew. Over 500 people were traveling with him on the state-of-the-art A380, which had just cleared a spate of scattered cloud cover hanging over the city. He stared out the window and observed the city slowly fade into a brilliant point of light. Jeff's plane was flying northwest over suburbs and rivers on its way to the ocean. Seeing how high up they were didn't bother him as much as the knowledge of a lack of control. He wanted to be the one flying. A sudden jolt of turbulence did nothing to allay his thoughts as the shaking scrambled his vision. This was going to be a long trip.

Luckily, Jeff was able to convince the company to accommodate his irrational fear and upgrade coach tickets to business class. This particular airline boasted luxurious leather seats and ample legroom on the upper deck, so at least he was comfortable as he maintained a death grip on their armrests. In addition, Jeff managed to get a row of seats to himself, saving him from embarrassment and affording a little privacy. He stared straight ahead at a black, wrinkly seat just like his own.

Jeff was apparently doing a terrible job at hiding his discomfort, as a young blonde flight attendant stopped rolling her service cart and slipped him a few colorful bottles. He happily mixed them in a cup to calm his nerves, but almost shattered the glass anyway when they hit an air pocket and fell for a second or two. After downing the cocktail in a flash, Jeff lifted his drink in silent appreciation. The attendant nodded back before turning to the next row. The turbulence had died down now, and wind buffeting the jet felt more like speed bumps than mortar strikes. Jeff absentmindedly twirled a finger in his glass and tried to focus on the liquid adhered to his finger. The drop quivered for several moments before splashing back into his glass.

A man sitting across from Jeff wearing a red DBU jersey caught the businessman's attention. The football fan boarded right before him and appeared to be about the same age. Since nearly everyone else around them was asleep, the man spoke in a hushed tone.

"Hej, hey! If you're having trouble, try listening to music. It takes your mind off the plane noise."

Better than doing nothing, Jeff thought. He smiled back and whispered mange tak before pulling out a pair of white earphones. A persistent drum beat flowing through both buds drowned out the engines' whirring, and Jeff tried his best to sink into the plush seat. Their flight would be continuing on overnight, allowing him to sleep before they touched down in time for lunch in DC. He slipped out of his shoes and assumed his swelling feet were simply due to the flight.

A sudden, intense pang of itchiness interrupted his brief triumph at relaxation. Jeff reached around to claw at his back. Probably one of those shady laundromats using cheap detergent. Some seconds of earnest scratching ameliorated the bothersome crawling, but then his arm started to twinge. He pulled it around and rolled up a sleeve to glance at his skin. Only it wasn't skin anymore.

A tough new sheath of purple scales covered his arms like a pair of medieval gauntlets. They were difficult to clearly make out in the cabin's dim light, but there was no mistaking their indelible imprint on his body. Jeff turned his arm around a couple times and blinked, but they weren't going away. This wasn't some drunken hallucination. He needed to get to the restroom. The businessman yanked his earphones aside and pushed out of his seat. Putting his shoes back on, he noticed they were now even more strangely tight and uncomfortable.

Jeff stumbled down the aisle, clutching at blue fabric that adorned each row of seats. He rolled down his sleeves at the same time to cover the odd rash, especially after his new football friend gave him a suspicious once-over. Others on the plane shot him similar passing glances but supposed he was just another airsick traveler. A few fidgeted nervously themselves at the sight of a fellow passenger in distress. But Jeff's unease was different. It wasn't a familiar pulling in the pit of his stomach, but rather an undulation that gripped his entire body.

Vacant, read a green plastic sign above the lavatory's handle. Thank God. Sweat cascaded down Jeff's face while he weakly pawed at the handle and pushed inside. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. Pounding in his head waxed and waned in time with each heartbeat. The businessman managed to shut the door and securely fasten its lock.

Jeff ran a hand through his auburn hair, but the sickened traveler's fingers ran into an unfamiliar obstacle. He tilted his head forward and leaned towards his reflection in the lavatory mirror. An ivory protrusion - he glanced opposite - in fact, two lumps jutted out of his skull. Each came to a sharp point, a fact Jeff discovered after a drop of his blood spattered against the brushed metal sink.

Groaning soon became roaring as his whole body underwent a change. Jeff's feet painfully strained against his expensive leather shoes. A hooked claw even pierced its way through the hide. The purple scales that drew him there in the first place had crawled across his torso and covered his other arm. His teeth were separating and sharpening. Severe blue eyes physically widened and the pupil narrowed, but he noticed in return his vision became sharper. Now he could see every scratch and imperfection on the mirror's surface. Jeff's iris displayed spiraling veins of white ice against a brilliant azure backdrop, but he only felt a liquid fire accompanying every adjustment. The businessman was pushed to his knees and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. The sound must have drawn some unwanted attention.

"Sir, is everything alright in there?" The bubbly flight attendant from earlier rapped a few times on the bathroom door and jiggled its handle.

"Uhh, y-yeah, I'll be out in a second." Was that his voice? It sounded so gravelly and raspy. Something was seriously wrong. He prayed he wasn't going to pass out from the stabbing pain in his chest.

Jeff was also getting larger. His white dress shirt lost most of its buttons and tore at the seams while his body bulked up. He undid his tie to relieve some of the pressure, but before he knew it his clothes lay in tatters at his newly-clawed feet. Not that it mattered much. Jeff's body was almost entirely unrecognizable as human. Catching one last glimpse of himself in the mirror, he saw he was more reptilian than anything. He took a hand and ran it down the opposite arm, taking in the bumps and wrinkles that now comprised his skin. The leathery texture was not too unlike what his first-class seat consisted of. Powerful muscles rippled across his torso, and ... were those wings? Jeff's pearly horns ripped into the plane's bulkhead as his height soared past seven feet. The bathroom was not going to contain his body for much longer.

Jeff reached to pull the door open, but he was apparently much stronger too. The door was ripped off its hinges and the lock went flying. Jeff's body, in all of its naked glory, emerged from the tiny restroom. The flight attendant, still hovering around the door, clasped a hand over her mouth and scuttled backwards. Three or four passengers who were looking back to see what the commotion was about started a panic in the cabin, screaming and pointing.

"What the hell!?" He heard one call.

"Drage!" yelled another. The Danish word either meant 'dragon' or 'kite.' The businessman didn't think he was talking about the latter.

Jeff tried to tell them he was friendly and simply confused about the whole situation. His voice had left him completely, though, and all he made were a series of hisses and growls. In fact, because his voice was so low, it sounded like an act of aggression to the humans.

Men and women were leaping out of their seats to move closer to the cockpit and away from the purple dragon. Jeff was about eight feet tall, and had to drop to all fours to avoid entrapment. He didn't realize he had grown a tail, the broad side of which swished and smacked the attendant square in her face. She crumpled to the ground, momentarily dazed.

Sorry! Oh, God, what have I done? The woman was lying motionless at his feet. Somebody get over here and help! He tucked his tail between his legs and slithered nearer to the crowd.

The humans pressed further against the cockpit door, as they perceived a vicious and unfamiliar beast sweeping a woman off her feet and glaring menacingly at them. An attendant entrenched among the crowd radioed the pilot to send a distress signal.

"The fuck is going on?" the pilot's voice crackled back. "Our board's lighting up like crazy!"

"Jeg ved det ikke! There's some kind of huge scaly bird or something running around!"

"Amsterdam approach, this is SAS 227 declaring a general emergency. A wild animal is loose on the aircraft. Please advise." His affirmation of trouble was faintly audible through the cockpit door, sending another wave of gasps through the assemblage.

Jeff was upon the crowd now. He sniffed the throng and licked his lips. A forked tongue slurped across the face of one woman. Mmm, they smell pretty delicious... The dragon shook his head and bared his teeth at himself. No. He wasn't going to let the feral side of whatever the hell he had become take over. It was his fault they were in this mess to begin with, and he would be the one to save them from any further injury.

The plane's metal skin creaked and groaned against the pressure his body exerted. His foot crashed through the floor and into an unsuspecting coach class. Jeff weighed almost a ton, and the jet wasn't going to stay together much longer.

What are we going to do? He looked out a tiny window, and could see they were still above the clouds. Once this jet breaks up, we're just going to fall to our deaths! Then he caught a reflection of his back. Of course! He had wings now! All the humans had to do was hold onto his body, and everyone would make it out of this safely.

Alright, people, grab on! Jeff had forgotten they couldn't understand him, and his roar certainly didn't curry favor with them. Then, his worst nightmare was realized when cracks began forming down the plane's fuselage.

Forget it. They're coming with me whether they like it or not. He lunged forward and wrapped his claws around the woman who had just taken a slimy tongue to the face. She shouted and wailed, but Jeff wasn't deterred. To show he wasn't going to eat them, he forced her against a rippling leg and motioned for her to grab on. Not wanting to anger the beast, she stayed there. Just as the humans were beginning to realize the dragon might be of service, the plane disintegrated completely.

Air whipped around Jeff while the cabin rapidly depressurized. Freezing cold nipped at his scales and he felt his body temperature begin to dip. The dragon's growth was accelerating all the while, and he was now over fifty feet long. Much to his surprise, he started sinking like a rock, blowing past the wreckage of the jet. Jeff had just expected his wings would work on their own, and tumbled several hundred feet before being able to unfurl them and begin fighting against his descent. His fears vanished in an instant as instinctual knowledge of how to maneuver finally kicked in. When he stabilized, Jeff glanced frantically around. He saw a few hundred humans well beyond his reach even with adrenaline coursing through his veins and let out a plaintive cry. This is all my fault. I didn't ask for this! Passengers were all over the place and at the same time getting smaller and smaller compared to his own body.

Figuring he had to start somewhere, the dragon dove after the closest speck. He flew under the human and allowed them to secure themselves to his back. Jeff realized he couldn't be as picky about where the flyers would land on his body and still save everyone, so for the next hundred or so humans he let cling to his feet. Another twenty latched onto his horns.

Thick, dark nails on each toe were jagged enough to allow a few to find purchase. They emerged from folds of uneven flesh and hooked back around to the dragon's sculpted foot. There, others had grabbed onto the ridges of his footprints. They ran deep enough for hand-holding and allowed for cover from wind gusts off of the dragon's titanic body. More scuttled between his toes but first had to navigate across the undulating mountains that comprised the texture of the giant's foot.

A large group that fell roughly together grabbed at his genital slit. Of all the places... Now he had to fight against potentially lethal arousal as they pawed away at him. He scratched at the slit and forced his lips open to quell the tingling. The dragon didn't consider his fingers were huge enough to dominate the tiny humans. He brought a claw up to his face to inspect it and noticed a red smear. Damn it! The dragon felt terrible that he wasn't treating his new position of power with respect.

By now there were maybe fifty more people that could be saved, who were all added to those already on his feet. The humans who grabbed onto his godly paws had to readjust their grip as Jeff grew ever larger. Their crawling along his squishy pads forced Jeff to stifle a laugh. Each micro also had to contend with beads of moisture that appeared as the dragon expended energy. The droplets trapped those in their wake, but on the other hand plastered them safely against the Jeff's body.

Nearing three or four hundred feet long, the dragon had to begin to take his prodigious size into account. He had difficulty comprehending his size difference and squished a few unfortunate humans when he curled his toes to pull them closer to his body.

Oops, I'm sorry! Jeff hung his head upon feeling telltale goopiness. 'I'm sorry' isn't good enough. This is going all wrong! He was killing people rather than saving them, and vowed he wouldn't let another person on his body die. I guess some people is better than none, the dragon rationalized.

They were still in Denmark, probably over northern Jutland. Jeff searched for a field large enough to touch down and away from any lights. He found what he was looking for near a fjord and adjusted his wings to slow down. It fascinated him that the knowledge of how to manipulate his body was almost second nature. He leaned back and beat his wings while the clearing rushed up to meet the dragon.

Jeff carefully tilted his feet until each arch and heel rested perpendicular to the ground. His passengers disembarked, but not before amusing him once again as they slid down his supple pads. Finally, the dragon lifted his horns down and a last batch of stragglers tumbled off. Making use of his vastly improved vision, he saw that among those he had saved were the flight attendant, who must have recovered from her earlier encounter with his spade-like tail, and his football-loving neighbor from across the aisle. Jeff was glad to see them safe, even if they were fleeing in mortal terror from his towering paws. Maybe he would use his new body for good.

Jeff pondered what to do next. For the foreseeable future he was stuck as a dragon, but perhaps 'stuck' wasn't the right word. After all, he was hundreds of feet long from tip to tail and could fly wherever he wanted. The life of a dragon would be much more exciting than that of a salesman, anyway. But first he had to find a lair. All dragons needed one, and sticking around wasn't going to bode well for his future. So he lifted his enormous body up under the power of his sleek wings and disappeared into the cool night.

...

Rising and sinking among fluffy clouds, the dragon detected a twitch on one toe. They all got off, right?