FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I sit on a flat rock on the side of the forest path. Resting in my lap the dome of my pregnant belly sits calmly. I idly stroke the simulated effect on my body as I take in the sounds of the forest. The vibrancy of the leaves and the sunlight streaming through the canopy in places gives the whole place a painterly look.

My erstwhile guide to Little Hokkaido sits cross legged atop the trademark of his species on the other side of the path. The albino tanuki quietly sips from his glass. Once it is drained, he flicks his wrist holding the vessel and with a puff of mist it becomes a leaf once more. "You going to be alright without that once outside?" He eyes the swell in my midsection with a playful tone.

I blush once I realize what he means. "Oh, I'll be fine. Lee doesn't simulate things like morning sickness, for one thing."

The raccoon-dog lets out a bark of a laugh, his plump body wobbling all over. "Fair enough." He tucks the leaf into his sidebag. I know from observation that the bag is filled with nothing but such leaves.

It's only been a few days since I arrived, but I find it easy to see why the turnover is so slow. Of the predscapes I've visited, this might be the softest.

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When Lee opened up the door to his house, I found myself a bit taken aback. My research on him told me that he was the heir apparent of a clan of kitsune due to his power at such a young age, not even a single century old and having had his second tail for decades. This was notable also because his family had moved away from Japan generations ago.

So when a blond Caucasian man who looked hardly out of his early twenties opened the door, I had to take a moment to really adjust my expectations. He was a demi, with large tan-orange fox ears emerging from his shoulder-length locks. He had a round, soft face with light freckling atop his cheeks, just highlighting his smile as they encroached upon his green eyes. Across the bridge of his nose he wore a thin adhesive bandage, though likely it was there for show. He hardly dressed as an heir apparent, either: A loose grey hoodie obscuring most of his torso's shape along with some jean shorts. Peeking out from between these two garments were his twin tails.

"Come inside." He spoke with a general American accent, like you hear on most TV programs.

I stepped into the house and found it a very modest space. No really fancy things, just modern amenities. A couple anime posters up on the walls, a little bit of clutter on the coffee table.

"Please, sit." He offered to me, gesturing to his couch.

I moved to do so, clearing my throat. "I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to present as a demi."

He laughed at that, his mouth opening wider than seemed normal with his the jaw structure. "Oh, yeah. It's way easier to keep skin clean, but human ears feel weird."

I found myself blushing already. Damn my preyish tendencies but he had a cute mouth.

"Do you mind if I get comfortable?" Lee shut the door.

"Oh, sure." I replied. I assumed he meant he was going to assume a feral stature or something, but that wasn't what he'd meant.

The heir apparent casually undid his shorts and let them pool around his ankles with a sigh. "Much better." This act, of course, revealed that he wasn't wearing anything at all other than the hoodie.

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"I really should get going." My tanuki companion muses, looking along the path in the direction up the mountain. "I'm sure to be missed in my own forest."

"Oh." I pause mid-stroke along my midsection. "I'll be sure to ask Lee for your contacts when I come out as well."

The tanuki extends his legs and rolls off his 'pouch' onto his paws. His former seat contracts to a more manageable size as he retrieves his walking stick and carefully puts his drinking gourd back onto his back. He digs a paw into his bag and pulls out an incongruous smartphone. "We should share info here for next time we're both 'sune-wobble." He winks.

I blush at his phrasing, but retrieve my own phone to hold out.

The albino taps his phone to mine, and both let out a little chime of confirmation. As he stows the device away again, he sighs wistfully. "Think I could convince Lee to just eat my forest?" At the expression on my face he laughs. "Nah, that wouldn't be fair to the world, gating nature behind a grinning boy's lips..."

I concur that that would be a bit drastic.

"Well, I'm off to the shrine. See you later, spotty~" The raccoon-dog winks and salutes with his free paw, before starting up along the path.

I wave in return and stand up myself, bracing my heavy belly. I can hear the tanuki humming his way along between clacks of his walking stick on stones behind me as I turn towards where the steam from the nearby onsen rises above the canopy.

A far more formal arrangement of hot springs than I'm used to, as loyal readers will remember.

The path down the hillside meanders to the front of the onsen building and beyond. This wooded section of Little Hokkaido takes up almost precisely half of the whole predscape. As I make my way down from the foot of the mountain, the trees thicken, blocking more of the view of the top of the canopy. The ground leveling out compounds this effect.

All together it means that when you step forth from the tree line into the park on the riverside, you are blindsided with the sight of the city on the other side of the water. If it weren't for the well maintained parkland lining the river on either side, Little Hokkaido would be split exactly between city and forest.

Like the forest, the skyline is almost impressionistic. The city proper of Little Hokkaido resembles its namesake from the late 1980s or the early 1990s, but the colors are more vibrant, contrast and saturation popped up a bit more. Hokkaido as artist renderings remember it. As I make my way down to the riverside to get a ferry across the water to the metropolis, I once again think about how animated this place seems.

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Lee settled, panting pleasantly. He was heavier than he looked, but also even softer.

I found myself blushing deeply as I lay on his couch, very effectively pinned in place. I looked around at my discarded clothes, his hoodie draped over them like some kind of unsubtle foreshadowing. I turned my head towards his smooth, hairless body, and then looked up into his smiling face. "Uh... sorry about the mess."

"Don't bother worrying about that." Lee said warmly, clearly enjoying my every fidget as his twin fluffy tails swayed above his hairless rear. "You seemed like you needed some good seasoning." He winked playfully.

I couldn't help but bite back my whine, reaching up around his shoulders... no matter how firmly I pressed, I never found bone beneath his smooth skin, every inch of him spongy and plush. My paws squeezed at where I knew there should be shoulder blades.

"Which way would you like to come in?" The kitsune chuckled affectionately.

I asked him what options there are, and he replied with quite a few more than I'm accustomed to. I bashfully replied that headfirst oral was fine. After all, I do have to write something about the experience for my column...

And his mouth... damn his mouth is nice.

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On the other side of the river, I step out of the small ferry and walk up the dock to the boardwalk. I glance around at the various kiosks and realize that I've entered a themed stretch of little 'businesses'.

Each kiosk advertises services in a different form of transformation to explore. I pass by one that offers to change species, another to change size, body type, biological sex, even trying out being made of something other than flesh and blood. Inside a predscape such things are far easier to try and reverse later than outside, but I'd never seen such transformations offered as easily as face painting on a mundane boardwalk.

Towards the end of the section, a salesferret in a kiosk points at my pregnant belly. "I can reset you back to standard, remove the pregnant status effect." The sign on his booth reads 'reset services', presumably to get people back to the state they were in when they arrived.

I blush and find both my hands cradling my gravid midsection. I tell him that I am fine for now. After all, it won't persist after I leave Little Hokkaido.

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Lee granted me a bit more time to appreciate his soft body, noticing how much my fingers roamed across his smooth skin. He patiently stayed in place, keeping my hips pretty immobile with his own while giving me access to his chest and belly.

I trailed my paw pads along his uniformly pale and bare skin, only broken up by the occasional outburst of further freckles, and of course, the fur of his vulpine parts. With both thumbs I squished into either side of his plush stomach, watching the flesh divot in to wrap up against my furred knuckles.

The kitsune showed no sign of discomfort no matter how far I pressed, how much I sank my fingers into his body.

He is yielding.

He even accommodated me when I curiously reached to feel his pointed ears, leaning down over me again to give me better access. He purred to me, and slowly extended his plump tongue from between his lips to squish against my cheek.

I let out a whine at the soft touch, having hardly taken hold of his ears. I gently ground my thumb pads into the fluff on the inside, bracing the rest of my fingers around the dish. After another firm grind of his broad tongue I stifled a groan, squeezing on his plush ears, before turning my attention to his mouth.

Unlike a human's, when he parts his lips only the tips of his canines peek into view, setting the stage for that monster of a maw muscle he's got hidden in his jaws. The tongue seems broader than the distance between the insides of his cheeks when you look inside.

When I looked inside I felt like touching his dark pink flesh would be softer still than his spongy skin, but yet another lick proved that wrong. The flexible organ is smooth and a bit more firm. It is, after all, mostly muscle. I pressed into the lick, moaning meekly and giving another squeeze onto his ears.

Lee's jaws parted further. He somehow always kept his soft lips between me and his teeth, apart from light brushes from the tips of his frankly rather blunt canines. As he eased his mouth over my flopped ears, I felt his hands gently taking my fingers away from their reverie over the fluff sticking out of his hair. The fox boy mmmed affectionately as he lightly pinned my arms to my sides, before easing his jaws further forward with a playful 'awmn' sound from his throat.

My snout bumped the pillowy weight of his uvula, before being guided into the muscular passage downward. In keeping with the rest of his body, I have to say that his throat might be the softest and most elastic I've gone through. It stayed snug against my head even when I turned it as far as the tendons in my neck would allow in multiple directions.

The kitsune let out a little chuckle at my exploration, and I felt his hand on my snout through the elastic flesh. At the same time, his other hand playfully grasped at my rear and pulled. He must have shifted his hips to allow my legs free, because I was being lifted from his couch until my bare toes wiggled above the cushions.

I bit back a whine at the sudden absence his warmth and heft left behind from this, cognizant that I'd be well and truly in his embrace soon.

With his other hand joining is brother opposite and both groping into my rear, he worked that hidden whine out of my throat, before pulling eagerly. My chest and upper arms were delved in, while my head burrowed into his chest, surrounded by the sound of his heart and lungs working. His fat tongue ground into my sternum, before extending out and cradling the curve of my full belly. The broad muscle stayed cupped there as another shove worked my hips to his lips and my shoulders down his throat, as if it were appraising how well he'd 'fed' me.

I felt my tail tuck between my thighs at those feelings, which made things simpler for him in general. Below his stomach let out an eager little growl, not so bass as some of the predators who have craved for me mid-swallowing, perhaps more cloying and playful. Another shove and my head pressed through the cardia into the chamber below.

Lee quivered a bit as my waist and hips sank into his throat, his moan vibrating right against my navel. The feeling of my contours seemed to be one he enjoyed quite a bit. From that point, all he had to do was tilt his head back, and I was practically in a freefall.

My own weight combined with just how readily elastic the kitsune's flesh was meant that I was pressed into and curled around by the stomach walls significantly faster than I was accustomed to, like I was sliding into a heated bath. I felt his mouth lightly shut once my feet were within. Even then he didn't knit his teeth together, keeping his lips as the seal that closed behind me. And with one last swallow, my legs practically tumbled in with me.

I found myself easily able to rearrange myself to be seated upright within the spongy flesh that I'd been admiring from the outside mere minutes prior. Slowly, they began to tense, becoming more like the firmness his tongue granted. His rugae are not nearly as aggressive as some I've encountered.

I could hear Lee sigh in contentment, cradling me in his arms. He patted the back of my head through his pillowy flesh and gave me a gentle rock. When he spoke, it was a simple utterance. "Five." I was about to ask what he meant when he said "Four."

I blushed deeply, and did my best to settle my fidgety energy as the countdown continued. I didn't even realize I was drifting off before it happened. I didn't make it to one.

I awoke on the shore of the river of Little Hokkaido, lying in the grass of the park. I was also fully naked, and a touch to my midsection showed my stomach markedly flat. I sat up and sought to find my bearings.

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As I make my way through the city towards the small apartment I've been using in the few days I've been here, my thoughts are disrupted by some commotion. When I turn to look, I see a large, muscular tiger standing three heads above most of the crowd.

The feline sports a large, writhing belly and as I watch, he grasps a human in his large claw. In an effortless show of predation, he shoves the naked ape into his jaws, swallowing greedily to get him down as quickly as possible. Looking closer, I see his claws are already groping out to find the next meal. He barrels down the road in my direction.

As I watch, I notice that several people merely step aside from his claw, almost not seeming to care. In fact it might be a testament to how few people he's actually able to catch that he's still able to stand and move about with his struggling belly.

When he gets into arms reach of me, I find myself able to simply duck under his lunge and pass between his muscular arm and his body to safety on the other side.

A hare behind me is not so lucky. Or perhaps she is. When I look back, her face is a look of nervous excitement. She is downed to join the rest in a mere two swallows by the tiger.

Even though the beast has yet another meal, he rampages on, seeming increasingly frustrated by people able to step out of the way.

I stop to watch, wondering if he even read the orientation before he started doing this.

A shortish mouse demi casually sidesteps three consecutive grabs. The smooth-skinned rodent raises one eyebrow, his large dish-like ears folding to the sides slightly. He doesn't seem afraid however. Merely annoyed.

So annoyed, in fact, that on the next greedy grasping lunge, he doesn't sidestep out of the way. He opens his mouth.

The tiger lets out a confused chuff as his arm wetly squelches right down the much smaller male's throat. He tried to pull back, but it was as if the demi-mouse had become a vacuum, his feet securely in place.

With a smug expression on his face, the murine tugs the much larger feline off-balance with a simple jerk of his head. Before my eyes, the broad shoulders, yowling head and muscular chest sink right in. The mouse's belly lightly presses his shirt up with the gentle swell it's developing from all that meat. It takes the demi another two gulps to work the broad, squirming belly full of apparent bystanders past his stretched lips.

A small group of people have paused to watch as well. As the striped tail finally slurps away like a noodle, they applaud politely, before heading on their way.

The mouse, patting his smooth beach ball of a belly as it wobbles and shifts, the motions dying down as his belly lets out a loud, wet churning. It's already starting to shrink down as he turns to continue on his path.

I move to intercept, having to hold my belly as I weave through the crowd, and ask him how he pulled that off.

The demi rodent grins at that. "Oh, the way he was acting... Greedy guts like that probably just ate both permission cookies without reading what they are. The fact that worked proved it." He thuds his chest, and when he belches a series of cell phones clatter out onto the sidewalk, before melting into the ground, presumably to reappear at the river with their owners.

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It didn't take me long to spot a small gift shop that had the international information icon on its sign. Noting the level of undress some of the other people enjoying the park around me had, I settled back into the semi-nudist mindset that many predscapes seem to engender.

When I walked into the shop, the kappa behind the counter smiled. "Ah, newcomer eh?"

"Y-yeah." I managed, finding myself embarrassed, despite the fact that it was likely this yokai's job to greet new arrivals.

The aquatic creature chuckled and pulled a small cellophane bag out from under the counter, containing a pair of cookies, one frosted orange and the other frosted purple. His other hand set a smartphone on the counter. "Here's your 'starting inventory' as it were."

"What do I owe you?" I ask thoughtlessly, then groan and facepalm.

He let out a cackle. "Oh, ain't no money in here. People work to keep busy or 'cuz they like it."

I nodded my understanding. After all, I've yet to be in a predscape where people had to pay for things. It was a testament to how much this shop felt like a real tourist stand that I just defaulted to that line of thought. I lightly picked up the phone and tapped the button beneath the screen with my thumb pad.

The screen lit up, first reading that it was pairing itself to me, and then displaying a welcome screen.

"Manual, guide, map, and inventory management are handled on your phone. Even if you drop it, it'll just reappear on your person when you need it." The kappa explained.

At the mention of it, I tapped the inventory management icon. On the screen, there were icons of the phone and one each for the two cookies, despite them being in the same bag. When I tapped my thumb on the icon of the phone, a little window appeared.

'Smartphone: it's what you're looking at right now, silly.'

I raised my brow, and curiously tapped the purple cookie.

'Prey permissions: Consume to enable being eaten by others.'

Another tap told me that the second cookie was the same but in reverse, to allow me to partake in eating others. "Kinda... game-y, isn't it?" I remarked.

Behind me, a jovial voice spoke. "Do you know how young Lee was when he made this place?" I turned to find myself looking at a white and grey tanuki, leaning on his walking stick. A closer inspection showed he was albino, and the grey areas were paint in his fur. "I'm always surprised how smoothly this thing operates when he's hardly updated it."

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After parting ways with the turnabout king of mice, I decide to stop by in an arcade. Being led around by my tanuki guide had left me with little time to really settle in and observe how things go. Sure, he showed me the sights, but I'm more interested in what the day to day is in Little Hokkaido.

Near the middle of the entrance area of the arcade a double-pad dance game is set up. On the left pad is a human dressed in a business suit. What draws my attention isn't that, however. It's how fast his feet are moving. Without breaking a sweat, the salaryman's shod feet raise and fall with precision, almost faster than my eyes can track. Honestly his legs are nearly a blur.

I look around him at the screen of the machine, and a cascade of brightly colored 'PERFECT's flow from his every step. I lean against the support bar on the unoccupied side to watch.

The song ends with the man on the pad rotating three times to make up the final combination. He stops facing the screen again, still not showing any sign that he had exerted himself. He gives a thumbs up to the screen when his rank appears. Triple S. It isn't until after that that he notices his audience.

"Oh, you want a play? Or do you wanna go solo?" He smiles warmly. Despite his garb he's nothing like what I know of real salarymen. Perhaps the fact that money isn't an issue means they don't work themselves into drunk emotional crashes after work.

I wave a hand and tell him that I couldn't hope to follow up after that performance. As extra proof I lift back from the bar to show off my pregnant belly.

"I'm sure you know that's not real." He chuckles.

I pout, but nod.

The salaryman leans on the other handrail. "Neither is your whole body. We are minds..." He gestures vaguely with one hand "Or souls... or whatever. You don't actually need to breathe. You only get tired and sleep because you expect to."

I raise one eyebrow, unable to stop myself from making the reference. "There is no spoon?"

The human rolls his eyes and pulls his smartphone out. He taps a bit and nods firmly. "Come on, I'll show you. Fighting tournament's going on in the arena down the block."

I shrug and follow him. I'm curious, of course, but also I don't want to seem closed-minded when I'm here specifically to learn and report my findings!

In what feels like a short montage, he's led me out the doorway on the opposite side of the arcade I came in through, and into a large octagonal building. Despite how crowded it is inside, I can hear him speak easily over the roar of the crowd. "Because you can't get hurt or tired, the matches are decided by ring-out eliminations."

When we get a view of the playing field itself, I see what he means. The stage itself is a large circular platform made of square cement pavers set into a cement ring. The ring juts up from a koi pond that fills the space between the octagonal stands and the grid of cement. Up above, the roof beams meet one another directly above the fighters.

Speaking of the fighters, they're engaged in combat already when I first turn my attention to them. One is a demi lizardman of some sort, sporting scaled claws in addition to a long winding tail and a pair of fins where his ears would have been if he was human. His opponent is an extremely slender blue deer with short-clipped antlers. Both fighters are dressed in loose fitting pants and a brightly colored vest with a single kanji character on the back. The way they're moving, however, I can't quite recognize which characters.

After back-flipping out of the way of a kick, the reptilian crouches, bunches his tail up between his thighs, and uses all three limbs to leap. He moves too fast for me to track, until I see where everyone else has turned their eyes.

He's grasping one of the beams holding the roof up with one claw.

"Surely, that must be a ring-out." I mutter, getting a laugh from my human companion.

The demi forms a blade shape out of his free claw and forcefully stabs right into it with his pointed fingertips. The wood splinters and shatters, making a rough cut straight through the beam that must be as wide around as the reptile's waist.

Down below, the deer crosses his arms patiently, as if waiting to see what his opponent will do next.

With a forceful tug from both claws, the lizardman yanks the six feet of beam he has severed from where it meets with the rest of its fellows, sending thatch tumbling in and a beam of sunlight searing into the shaded space. In midair, as he plummets, he does a complete front flip, bringing the length of beam down where the deer had been mere moments earlier, shattering the pavers.

The cervine is quick on his hooves, dancing just at the perimeter of the reach of the beam on its own.

Seeing this, the reptile lunges, letting the crater he's created be a pivot point as he closes the distance by nearly twice the beam's length towards his opponent. In the same motion he spun his body around, yanking powerfully.

Before my eyes the world seems to slow down, cement dust forming a trail in the wake of the impromptu weapon. The deer bends his knees to drop his center of gravity and reaches up to grasp onto the beam on the dusty, clean-cut end. I see his thighs flex as he leaps, using the continuing momentum from the swing to ride it in a full arc. And then, as the beam reaches the end of the lizardman's range of motion, the blue stag stabs his hooves into the floor, shattering more pavers. His grasp on the beam tightens and he unwinds the twist of his torso, using his grip to take advantage of the off-balance position his opponent has put himself in.

Not expecting this, the lizardman doesn't have time to let go. His own feet are yanked into the air and he is flung. His late release ends in him going flying right for the edge of the ring. The crowd is screaming as the world seems to catch up with itself. The reptile reaches out and digs his broad claw into the ground to slow his motions, making a long trail of broken pavers until his feet set down just at the edge.

Not that it matters. The deer rotates and twists his torso to continue the powerful swing. He arches back to complete the circle over his head and reverse the angle of his waist, before finally releasing it when he reaches the angle the lizard let go from once again.

The reptile hardly has time to stand from his three point posture before he is struck and sent flying into the water, the beam flipping in midair and splashing down beside him.

The blue deer dusts off his vest and steps out of the crater he made with his hooves onto a pristine paver. In a wave from his standing position, the pavers repair themselves, becoming just as clean. The column of light from the gape in the thatch narrows to nothing shortly after. The beam vanishes from the water, and when I look up, I see the roof is intact, as though it had never been damaged.

"The only real limit is your creativity and how fast you can think." The salaryman smiles, taking great amusement in my expression.

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After the tanuki took me on a whirlwind tour of the sights to see of the city, he dropped me off at the entrance of a residential building. "You'll find a place to sleep in here. Lots of comfortable apartments. Your phone can tell you which is yours, I'm sure."

"What about you?" I asked.

He chuckled and waved his stick. "I'm fine sleeping in the forest. If you'd like I'll come by tomorrow morning to show you around that side of things." After I nodded my assent, he strode off, the trademark of his species swinging with every sway of his ample hips.

Like he'd said, navigating up the building was easy with the use of my smartphone. The doors were locked with pads that the phones could be tapped against, and I found mine easily.

The room was cozy, overlooking a park. Night had already fallen by the time I made it into the modest chamber. Clear pictographs showed how to pull the bed out for use, as well as converting the space into other useful configurations. By then, however, I was exhausted, if only emotionally.

I slipped into the soft bed, what seemed to be memory foam. I couldn't stop thinking of it as Lee, however, the texture quite similar to my host.

Amorous thoughts brought me to slumber, and restful, dreamless sleep.

When I awoke, however, I found myself encumbered with a bulge in my midsection. It was about the size Lee had gotten me before he took me inside, but far more firm. As I curiously prodded over it, my smartphone vibrated on the side table.

Picking up the device, the notification on the screen was a message from the playful kitsune: 'Ooops, maybe we should have used protection!'

I blushed deeply as I put two and two together. Opening the phone's main menu, I found the app that was tracking what I was doing inside Little Hokkaido. Right beneath my name there was new text: 'Status: PREGNANT'

Tapping that just redirected the phone to display a page about status effects that visitors could encounter. I scrolled until I found the appropriate entry. 'Pregnant: Over a period of days, you grow gravid in a simulated pregnancy. Once at full pregnancy it will go unchanged until the effect is removed.' I squinted. In even smaller text beneath the entry gave a playful quote from Lee. 'Playtime has consequences! But at least in me they aren't real~'

After learning all I could about my new situation, I opened the map in the phone. An icon in the upper corner gave a helpful line showing my path through Little Hokkaido the day before. I realized with all that trekking about, it seemed as though I had hardly seen half of the city. I zoomed out and grew frustrated at how it wouldn't zoom all the way out. I started scrolling. As I went south, the river crossed the screen to reveal the forest as seen from above. The various rural buildings and attractions, such as the onsen were marked, along with the shrine at the center of the forest. I kept scrolling south and found the river again, and city on the other side.

I kept scrolling further and sure enough found myself back where I started. I tested this out going east next. The river crossed the screen at a perpendicular angle to the previous crossing, and when I got to the forest, the arrangement of landmarks were rotated 180 degrees.

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After parting ways with the kind businessman, I headed back to my apartment. This morning I left my building and set forth walking through an area of the city I haven't gone through just yet. It's another district entirely, the buildings seeming a bit more industrial. However, everything is just as clean as always, and the ubiquitous vending machines still stand up against buildings. As I near an alley entrance, I hear shouting inside.

"You wanna go?" A rhino demands intensely.

I pause, curious about how an altercation might go in Little Hokkaido, after witnessing the sorts of martial arts prowess people here can acquire.

"Yeah, let's go!" An antelope demi shouts back as aggressively. Both are wearing similar track suits, the type that remind me of team suits for athletes training together.

The rhino grins viciously, winding back one arm slowly, as if readying to punch. Instead of heading fist-first for the smooth skinned rival, however, it twists and opens to reveal a deck of cards. "Right! Let's see how your Deck can withstand mine!"

Without missing a beat, the antelope tugs a similar deck out of his sleeve, "You've never had the knack for deckbuilding. This duel will show you once and for all that brute strength isn't all that matters!"

I stare as they start intensely shuffling their decks. I turn and continue on towards the river, hearing them crying out the names of cards and attacks nearly a full block away.

It isn't long before I'm once again crossing the boardwalk to get on a boat, passing different kiosks than before. I make my way down to the docks, and find a small boat with a capybara settled into it.

The large rodent smiles as he spots me approaching. "Looking for a ride?"

I check the map on my phone and give a destination on the other side of the river, but far enough along its waters that it would be worth a specific charter like this.

The sailor nods and makes room for me to step onto his modest vessel. Perhaps half a dozen passengers could fit if they didn't mind being crammed in against one another. For me it is fine.

The engine putters to life cheerfully as I watch the capybara unmoor the boat, and then we are on our way. He heads around the front to make sure nothing is tangled, and comes back around to me. "So, get that on the way in or from one of the locals?" He playfully jibes at my blatant dome of belly.

I blush and fidget, before deciding to change the subject. I ask him how he likes sailing on this river.

"Oh... it's a fine, cozy thing to do. It's impossible to get lost, even if it don't make sense on a flat map." He chuckles, grasping the rudder's handle as he got into position.

I have determined for myself, based on my travels and navigation by map, that Little Hokkaido is a hypersphere. It may appear flat and level, however the space curves in on itself. If it were a mere sphere of the size it is the curvature would be obvious to the eye from anywhere. Furthermore, if it were properly a sphere, the day/night cycle wouldn't be unified across the whole space as it is. At the center of one 'hemisphere' is the shrine at the top of the mountain, my eventual destination.

~* ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ *~~*~

Waking up on my third day in Little Hokkaido, I found myself even further encumbered by my status effect. That wasn't nearly as worrying as the fact that I hadn't been able to access my work in the outside world. Perhaps I have just been spoiled with the fact that my previous hosts have given access to their inhabitants to connect to the Outside easily.

Via the smartphone, there is an intranet of sorts. Things created within Little Hokkaido are all accessible, shared and discussed by its inhabitants. Anyone you meet can be added to your contacts through willful sharing through the gesture of tapping screens together. In this way, you can keep track to friends you meet inside while both parties are still inside.

The guides however, make it clear that staying longer than a vacation's length is very uncommon. This is supported by my interviews with various residents. Perhaps the lack of internet is why people rarely decide to live in Little Hokkaido full-time like in other Predscapes I have visited.

As I looked through the guides again, I was relieved to find that time within Lee passed the same as it did for Lee outside. Perception of time is variable, but in absolute time a day is a day.

Still, I thought, I had better check in somehow. Despite Lee having sent a message to my phone, return messages don't go to him. It might be a method to prevent being swamped with attempts to contact him. The only way to contact Lee from inside is at the shrine.

* ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ *

I say goodbye to the capybara, still idly stroking over my belly. It's been at its full size since before I said goodbye to my erstwhile guide and companion. Today is the seventh day of my time within Lee, and I've got that directive after what happened with my first assignment.

I set forth up the walkway in the park that leads its way to the dense trees. It is a different trail than the one the tanuki took, but it will lead to the shrine all the same. I have been there once so far in my time here.

~* ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ *~~*~

On the afternoon of third day I had set forth an offering at the shrine at the top of the mountain. The traditional shrine had a few others present when I was there. From the climax of that peak, I could see the river, straight as the horizon in all directions. From the shrine, however, the city proper is obscured by mist. If that mist wasn't there to hide it, it may have been possible to see all the way around the hypersphere to the shrine's opposite side... or perhaps the skyscrapers of Little Hokkaido are too tall for that. Then again, all routes as the crow flies from the shrine would take one through the exact center of the city...

While I was there, one of the people who had left an offering before me stood at attention, as though being spoken to. The demifeline woman spoke, but I couldn't hear any words come from her. She nodded firmly, and then was enveloped in light until she was no longer visible. The light in her shape was wiped away, rising into an invisible gap shaped suspiciously like a familiar pair of jaws before it was gone.

Shortly after, Lee appeared directly in front of me. The rest of the shrine went blurry, as though painted in watercolor. He was his regular soft self, wearing his hoodie again, and still forgoing pants. He smiled playfully as he saw that I hadn't removed the status effect. "Coming out?"

I shook my head and requested that Lee check my outside messages for me in case I had missed anything. I gave him the password to my laptop that was still sitting in his house.

* ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ * ~~*~~ *

Each day since then, same time of night, I have received an update via a notification on my smartphone. Thankfully nothing so pressing that I should need to travel to the shrine again arose, though Lee did feel free to tease with his updates. Reading my email made him aware of my time limit, which gave him a whole new avenue to flirt, calling my return to the outside a 'date'.

I look at my smartphone. I was a bit too lackadaisical, or perhaps watching jocks start a duel had waylaid me too long. Walking up the mountain won't get me out in time for my schedule, and notably, Lee's. I stare up the mountain. On this side, the trees are scattered about with wide space in between, and the path switchbacks due to the steep incline.

I remember what the salaryman said. Only my mind can limit what I can do. I stop halfway between two bends of the path, looking up. The path crosses a direct line up the mountain relatively evenly most of the way up, with short retaining walls to keep the path from angling downhill and only traverse.

I take a step back, then another to feel my foot brace on the retaining wall behind me. I close my eyes, wind up... and push off the ground.

I open my eyes and the mountainside is a blur. My outstretched foot strikes down on the next retaining wall, feeling as intense as if I were skipping one step at a time on a staircase. Pushing off, I leap to the next wall, my mouth curving into a grin. I leap over the heads of other travelers, a giddy pregnant Dalmatian bounding up a steep mountainside as if it was nothing...

No wonder people come here for a vacation if you can have this kind of freedom. I look forward to the next time I can visit Little Hokkaido and, more immediately, my 'date' with Lee.