FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

CHAPTER ONE

A rabbit sat in a coffee shop. It was Sunday, about 3 o'clock, so this was expected. Her absence would be more surprising, more worthy of report. It had become so predictable an event that her order was almost ready before she even finished paying - a latte, medium, improved with a hint of mint no matter the season. When the barista wasn't too busy, he would draw a sprig of mint in the foam. It was how she had her first coffee years and years ago when she was in college. There was no reason to change it.

She wore the local uniform, jeans with a durable button-down shirt. She was tucked away in the corner, a simple wood chair supporting her, a laptop glowing blue-grey light onto her face. There, the noise of a half-empty cafe was whittled away to a fine din. Her brown ears, half-perked, kept the light from falling onto a painting behind her. It was an impressionist take on the look just a few blocks up the street; she was fond of it. The corner was slightly dark, tucked away from the September sun. Still, there was enough light in the back. If anyone there wanted to see the painting, they would be able to.

Sarah fidgeted and the corner creaked. She was worrying about money.

Her finances were safe, by most reasonable standards, yet there was a nagging sense that she should be doing better. Perhaps she could save a little more. She could go to fewer movies with Sean and their whole circle of friends. She couldn't get rid of her television like Sean did; she relied on it too much for work. But she could stop coming to the Deadline Cafe every Sunday. It did feel like the lattes got more expensive the last year or so.

Everything in Portland felt like it was getting more expensive lately. Most of it was inevitable. She moved here when things weren't very good anywhere, and now things were especially good here. New businesses were popping up in her neighborhood left and right. Businesses that, for one reason or another, she rarely went to.

Some of the growth was probably her fault. At least, it was the fault of the swarm that started moving into town in the last few years. She knew she was part of it.

So making plans made sense. Sarah wanted to be a sensible rabbit. She wanted to keep enjoying the city, to keep on going without having to cut back too much.

The Deadline was a home away from home. It almost felt like more of a home than her cozy apartment up the road. The walls here were caked with artwork. Scenes of local attractions and raw emotion, the output of the city's remaining artistic heritage. Tall windows kept the front well-lit in the summer, with only subtle ambient light filling the area Sarah preferred.

Maybe I should keep the lights low at home, she thought. It would cut down the electric bill, at least. Probably wouldn't mind it.

What she did mind was the pair of foxes sitting halfway across the room. She was always instinctively on edge around foxes, but these were more distracting simply because they were so loud. The cafe was never silent, but the pair had apparently decided to try to compete for the loudest source of noise. They were putting in a gold-star effort.

Sarah tried not to eavesdrop, but her focus was repeatedly ripped from her laptop by their laughing interjections. Howls of "you're serious?" and "oh hun, I know!" were favorites. Their loudest cries grabbed the attention of the entire back room, including a coyote on the other side of the room. He stumbled onto eye contact with Sarah, his face broadcasting the same silent exasperation.

She tried to avoid focusing on the two and let her mind float in the air. A breeze from the vent pushed her thoughts to a wire sculpture. It hung from a thin string, high against the bare rafters. It was a silver skeleton of pyramids, interlocking and staggered. Its construction probably held no particular significance, but it was familiar to Sarah.

Her neighbor, Carl, had something similar on his apartment door. It was simpler and flatter, but it showed the same geometric approach. It had been there since she moved in years ago, never coming down, not even for holidays. It was one of those things that she knew him by; he was The Hyena with the Sculpture above anything else.

She shook her head quickly to regain focus, her ears flopping loosely. All this effort and worry around budget was starting to feel like a pointless exercise. After all, things were going fine. She wasn't rich - not by her own standards - but she didn't need to make sacrifices. She wasn't struggling to make rent. She could even afford that trip to Washington to help Alex with his gallery showing.

Hell, she thought, I have savings. Nobody has savings.

The uncertainty still hung on her face. Even if things were good now, she was convinced they wouldn't last. Her routines would have to change someday. A surprise would be hard to manage.

She sipped her coffee as if part of a ritual, closed her eyes, and took deep meditative breaths. Her focus returned. She started thinking of scenarios that could affect her finances.

What if I find a new job? Would make things easier, sure, but I doubt it'd be that much... And that's best case anyway. What if I lost it? I mean, Roger likes me too much so I'm not gonna get fired, but even then, I should be fine for a little while. Like, four months? Maybe five if I cut down a little. I can find a new job by then. Moving would... no, I can't do that, rent's too crazy. Well, I guess I could split a place with Sean if he'd want to, but... I don't think he'd really want to...

The tangents were useful, she'd tell herself, even if they were unlikely. She found success at work by letting her mind wander. Her marketing job was rarely creative, but when it was, her wandering mind led to impressive results. And besides, the whole point of her coming by on a pleasant Sunday afternoon was to prepare. What good is it to only be ready for things that were likely to happen?

But she knew she wasn't getting anywhere. And as her latte cooled and neared its end, the mint aroma all but vanished, she conceded the point. Her head was only filled with half-thoughts, each trailing into the next, none of them offering any meaningful action or idea. There might be some small nugget of gold buried in there, but she wasn't going to find it today. Her mind was stuck in mud without the strength to pull itself out.

She sighed and closed her laptop, fitting it into her bag. As she stood, she glanced again at the hanging wire sculpture. It, like everything else that decorated the cafe, had a price attached to it. $65.

It wasn't going in the budget.

CHAPTER TWO

September had only just started, and the weather had not gotten the memo. The sun still hung in cloudless skies, as warm and bright as Sarah ever wanted summers to be. She was starting to miss the spring rain and looked forward to the autumn muck. It wouldn't be comfortable or even pleasant weather, but it was coming. After living there four years, she knew what to expect.

Compared to so many of her neighbors, though, she was an outright veteran. Her building was old, but its residents had mostly moved in after her. Only two or three others in the building were there longer. The new neighbors were split into two camps: either they came to town as part of the soggy gold rush that was the local tech scene, or they were trying to downsize out of a neighborhood that the gold rush made too expensive. The Alphabet District was far from the most expensive area (that was the Pearl District, by all estimates), but it did have its price. Yet, it also had its appeal. Sarah couldn't blame anyone for wanting to move here.

She always left her apartment door open when she got home. Hers was a corner apartment, as far from the stairs and elevator as it gets, so nobody ever passed by her door. Carl lived across the hall, but that was it. So leaving the door open became something she just did.

This confused Sean. He was the kind to lock his door, and double-check the lock, and even then be a little wary that he forgot. He worked in software, and, as a result, became tensely aware of his own privacy and security.

At the same time, he was a raccoon. By his telling, he was a loner growing up as well. The combination made others just a tiny bit unsettled, if only subconsciously. But Sean noticed. He had developed a fear of his own reputation. He kept the fact quiet, but around Sarah, he was willing to share.

As far as she was concerned, his reputation was clean. Perhaps even admirable. He was something of a leader for their group of friends, a cobbled-together set of imports who needed others in their new town to be friends with. She admired anyone who could keep them organized.

The group started doing whatever was around. Small street festivals, holiday events, trivia nights, anything that sounded interesting. Sean wasn't in charge when things started, but nobody minded it when he took charge. He was happy to do anything that didn't exist back in his corner of California. That was the whole reason he moved - he needed to do something new.

Sarah let him into the building and led him back up to her still-open apartment, watching as he rolled his bike along. He was slightly taller than Sarah (unless they had their ears perked) and, despite riding several miles to Sarah's place, still wore the programmer's typical hoodie and dark jeans. He paused when they reached the apartment door.

"Okay, seriously," Sean said, "why is your door still open?"

"It's hot." For September, it was. "Besides, it's not like it's a big deal. I mean yeah, people steal shit, but the building's locked. It's fine."

Sean nodded. "I guess I always worry someone's just gonna, like, swoop in and steal my laptop and boom, it's gone."

"Well, that's 'cause your computer is, like, your whole life."

Sean feigned indignation. "Not all of it! I have the bike too."

The two bonded over movies. The group made a ritual of going to a small theater every other weekend. Sean and Sarah made a habit of going to each others' place on the other weekends. Other members of the group used to join in, but lately, it was just the two of them.

This week was the same. Invitations came back with a batch of "no"s, along with some "maybe"s that everyone knew to treat as a polite rejection. Sean said he might call it off entirely at this point. Kate was starting to talk as if Sarah and Sean were dating, and with how much time they spent together, they were both running out of arguments to the contrary. But Sarah liked the routine. She liked the movies they picked. And, though she wouldn't admit it, she liked Sean.

"So," Sean said, "I need you to explain something to me. How in the hell have you not seen Young Frankenstein?"

Sarah shrugged. "I haven't gotten into Mel Brooks yet. He's not my style."

"But he's-"

Sean cut himself off. He loved debating movies with friends. Most of them were even good for a snappy quip in return, the sort of friendly banter that endeared Sarah to the whole crowd. Sean played well off Kate in particular because she was so loud. Sarah, a more mild-mannered rabbit, wasn't a good foil.

Mel Brooks was Sean's kind of thing. Sarah wasn't as much of a fan; she liked Hitchcock and Kubrick, any sort of slow and brooding drama. But she was never very interested in defending her tastes, so if Sean wanted to argue, well then, he could argue.

"Right. We need to get you to see History of the World at some point."

"I saw that," Sarah said. "You got me to watch that last time we had this argument."

"Well, then, there you go. You've seen the best Mel Brooks movie."

"So, good, we're done."

"I didn't say that!" He grabbed the remote. "It's Young Frankenstein, or it's Spaceballs, whichever one is around..."

Sean trailed off. Sarah's face was back to the same expression she wore in the coffee shop, her cheeks drooping as she stared at the idle TV.

"Look, I'm sorry about arguing."

Sarah chuckled. "No, dude, that's half the fun."

He tilted his head and examined her face. "Well, is something wrong? You look kinda..."

"I know. I'm just... I dunno. Been thinking about work, and the apartment..."

"Things not going well?"

Sean was one of the few people Sarah knew she could open up to. "Two guys on my team both quit lately. One went off to another startup, no surprise, but the other left town for somewhere cheaper. And I keep hearing about stuff like that, things getting too expensive, and I'm just like... I don't know if I'm ready in case I have to worry about that."

"Well, your job's going fine, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Not gonna lose that anytime soon."

"Then don't worry. You know what you're doing."

Sean dropped himself on the couch, swiping his tail to the side. Sarah joined him, leaning back and tucking her tail between the cushions.

"You know better than to tell me not to worry."

"This is true," Sean said with a slight smile.

"Besides, you're the one with the good job." Sean nodded meekly. "So you've definitely got nothing to worry about."

"Well, you've got a good job too."

She didn't enjoy working in marketing, but she had to admit, it did pay well. "I guess. I just... I feel sorry for people."

Sean nodded, more confidently this time. "This about Alex?"

Sarah dithered. "Maybe, a little?"

"How's she doing?"

"He," Sarah said.

"We're going with 'he' now?"

"Last we talked."

Alex was known to move around with what pronouns he preferred. Sarah was always willing to oblige, but it was the sort of information that needed to be passed around.

He was one of the first people Sarah got to know in Portland. He was offering art lessons at the time, and Sarah took him up on the offer. He fit Sarah's idea of the eccentric, androgynous artist to a T: a small, curiously fashionable otter, soft-spoken with an excitable and scattered brain. Just the kind of character Sarah wanted to get to know.

"But yeah. He's surviving, still working at that bar. Sold a couple of pieces."

"Well, that's good. He still looking at that guild thing?"

Sarah sighed. "Didn't sound like it."

The guild was one of Sarah's many attempts to help Alex out. He was a starving artist, at times literally, and Sarah felt a motherly need to help him. She caught wind of a graphic designer guild in town - more of an industry support group than anything serious - and suggested it to Alex. Most of the members were artists, so she assumed he would fit in fine. Perhaps he would even get a more meaningful job than waiting tables at yet another bar. At this point, he seemed as well known in food service circles as in art circles.

Sean and Sarah didn't run in either of those. Their circle was, tonight, focused on a cheap couch and a modest TV in a cheap and modest apartment. It was nowhere near perfect. Sarah would definitely prefer it if the apartment were bigger or if the couch were more inviting. But it was okay, and she was satisfied.