FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Erik stirred in his haystack, waking to the early morning birds, their distant calls reverberating through his sheet metal shack. He stretched as much as he could, his fist inevitably bumping into the wall, then sat up, and stepped out the door into the bright, sunny world. It had been two weeks since he had his meeting with Vera. It was August now, and many of the early-blooming vegetables were ready. He had been working hard at making sure the farm was running well enough. Not that he knew better than Kerry did, who usually took the lead around there, but it was helpful to split the duties.

As he approached the house for his crack-of-dawn duties, Will interrupted him, sleepy, but looking a little irritated. “Hold on, there. You're not doing anything until you bathe. I swear, that musk you make is just... whew." He waved his hand.

“Er, sorry, sir. Humans sweat when we work hard, and when it's hot. So when it's both..."

“Yeah, yeah, I know." He produced a wooden token, a coin of sorts, and tossed it down to Erik. “Go clean yourself up, and try to make it snappy."

“Yes, sir." He bent over to pick up the coin, and inspected it as he trudged toward the town proper. Twice now, Will had demanded that Erik clean himself, the smell of a greasy human accosting him. Erik discovered the first time that the town had a bathhouse, for the odd occasion a local anthro found themselves to be simply too dirty to go on.

Walking through town, people still gawked and held their noses. A blue jay child threw a handful of dandelions at him from the other side of a stick fence. “Stinky! Gross!"

Erik grumbled, but tried to forgive the young one's cruelty, weaving down the pathways, and approaching an old building at the water's edge, where smoke regularly billowed. The roof had fallen in and been mostly disassembled by now. Since that was unusable, it had been converted into a bathhouse of sorts, the smoke from their fires able to rise freely out of the building. As he approached it, still groggy from having woken up, he was greeted by a mountain lion woman, while a mountain lion man and a bear man inside took a cast iron bath tub off of a metal rack that was perched over a fire, holding it aloft with long poles, and put it on the floor, ready for a soak.

“Ugh, you again." She groaned.

“Sorry." He apologized again. “I know you all don't like me stinking the place up, but... that's kind of what this place is for. Right?"

She held out her hand, none too amused. “I guess so. Got a chit?" Erik forked over the wooden coin, and she inspected it closely for a moment, checking to make sure it wasn't fake. “Alright. Just for your... funk." She craned her head over her shoulder, and shouted into the house. “Tony! Ultra Deluxe for the baldy!"

“No kidding." The mountain lion man also groaned. From an old cupboard, he took out a large pod made of a wrapped-up leaf and tossed it into the water.

Erik stripped down in the privacy of the bathhouse and slipped into the tub. The shock of the hot water hit a bit hard at first, but the smell of the additions to the water hit him and it was satisfying. The pod was full of some homemade soap shavings, plus a bunch of fresh oils and herbs, and made him smell like savory potpurri compared to his usual dirty, sweaty funk. He could feel the grime melting right off. He scrubbed at his arms, his legs, feet and head. Sadly for him, Ultra Deluxe was about stink, not length of the bath. “You got five minutes, kid!" The woman shouted her warning to him.

“Understood!" He called back. He scrubbed furiously, trying to be as quick as possible, as he heard someone else being led through to another room, complaining about the smell. He knew they had limited space for people to just hang out and soak, and he surely had things to do.

He finished up quickly and got dried off and dressed again. It sort of defeated the purpose to get out of the bath and put on the same dirty clothes, but that was pretty much all he had. He said his thanks and returned home, shouldering the stares and sneers of some of the people.

As he approached the house that morning for new orders, Shirley approached him. “Erik, smells like that place is working well for you. Come on up and have breakfast with us."

“Really? Are you sure I shouldn't take it out on the job? Some of the peppers look ready for harvest."

She waved it off. “No, no, those can wait. I insist."

At the top of the stairs, on the porch, the whole family sat at a table and ate. A simple meal, scrambled eggs, a small slab of salted fish, some buttered bread, half an apple, a cup of water. But there was nothing quite like a fresh meal.

Kelsey, wearing some unusually basic brown clothes, spoke to Erik as he finished off his meal. “So, you enjoying it here, Skinny?"

He nodded, not caring too much about the nickname. “I wasn't sure at first, me being a human and all, but I'm actually having an okay life here. You've all been very generous to me, and people seem to be warming up to me. Sort of."

“Sort of?"

“The townspeople still give me dirty looks. And sniffs."

“Well... they'll get used to it." She chuckled. “But hey, now that we're all gathered up, I've got an idea I need to run by you all."

Will raised an eyebrow as he looked to her. “What's that?"

“I've got a lead on a new place to check out, but it's pretty far out, I'll be gone for a few days."

This didn't seem out of the ordinary for Kelsey. Kerry shrugged. “But what's the idea?"

Kelsey pointed to Erik nonchalantly with her thumb. “I should bring Skinny along. He's strong enough, and can carry some extra stuff."

“What? Why?"

“Who better to navigate a human ruin than a human? And we have the only one to use, seems a waste to keep him on the farm picking fruit."

Kerry groaned at the notion of not having an extra set of hands around. “Oh yeah, like I don't want help or anything."

Will frowned. “I don't like the idea of him going out there. We can't afford to lose him. Do humans even know how to survive in the wilderness?"

Erik looked to them, all waiting for his reply to this burning question. “I mean, some humans like to camp, hunt and spend time outdoors. I did sometimes." He looked to Kelsey, her pale blue eyes focused on him. “I don't even know what you do, Lady Kelsey."

She snorted out a laugh. “Hah! So formal..." She shook off the comment and replied to him seriously this time. “I'm a scavver. I look for useful stuff in the wilderness and bring it back. Helps the village out." She shrugged. “But sometimes - okay, often - I don't know what I'm looking at, lotta these human secrets are just lost to time. But... not if you're with me to identify stuff. You'll improve the haul a hundredfold!"

Her idea made sense. “Well, I don't mind going, if that's my job. But it's up to Mister Decker if I'm going anywhere. He's in control of me around here."

Will groaned. He didn't want to risk losing him foolishly, and he definitely didn't want him near his daughter too much. “How long did you say...?"

“Relax, I'll be back with plenty of time to spare. Don't worry so much!"

Will couldn't argue with her logic, and he knew Erik had earned his trust as a loyal follower. “I... guess."

Kelsey grinned, flashing her sharp canines. “Alright, that's the spirit. Pack your bags, Skinny, we're going for a hike!" She got up from the table and went inside to pack hers.

Erik shrugged, as her energy took her away from the table before he could even really reply. “... I don't have a bag."

Shirley put her paw on his shoulder calmly. “I will pack you a bag, Erik." She whispered to him. “I'll include some food. Trust me."

He was a bit embarrassed to get invited on a trip and not have anything to do it with. “Thank you, Lady Decker."

Soon, Kelsey was out, clad in her recently cleaned camouflage clothes. They had large pockets on the shirt and pants, and she sported an old, black knapsack. Erik just wore what he had, and carried a brown canvas dufflebag, which happened to have straps so he could wear it as a backpack.

“Hope you're ready, Skinny, the bush isn't easy to get through sometimes."

“You lead, I'll try to follow. Do you know where we're going?"

She shrugged. “I have an idea, but there's a couple of lakes between us and the ruins. Just keep up and we should be there in a... reasonable amount of time."

The two waved goodbye to the family, as they headed down the stairs, and left the property. Outside of the farm, they were entering actual wilderness. Kelsey made almost no noise with her paws whisking through the long grass, but Erik in his clunky, flat shoes added a lot more noise to the atmosphere.

“This is exciting! I haven't taken someone else with me for a raid for what seems like ages!"

He nodded, happy to be going somewhere, though the world may be more alien to him than it used to be, he couldn't be too sure. “Yeah, this could be interesting. So, what will we be looking for?"

“Anything of value, really. Tools, books, materials. You name it. Especially you , since you know what most of what we'll find actually is." She quickly tied up most of the her hair on the back of her head into a ponytail. The rest just naturally flowed off, like any long fur would.

“I'll try to keep an open mind, and not take memories for granted."

The two walked for quite a while, through the fields north outside of town, through a forest, then eventually came to a road, the cracks in it overgrown with weeds.

“Alright, we have to follow this old stone road for a while, eastish."

“Stone road?"

“Yeah, it's stone right?" She asked, looking back to him as they walked at a brisk pace, her nails making a light clacking sound on the asphalt.

“Yeah, it... well, it is a kind of stone, I guess. Asphalt."

“Asphalt?"

“It was a kind of surface people made of stone mixed with tar. Kept it a bit flexible so it wouldn't be so rough on our cars."

“What's a car?"

He was going to have to explain this much more primitively. “It was a way we used to get around to places either quickly, or if they were far away. A car was a big metal box on wheels, we'd sit in it and drive it to where we wanted to go, but we needed roads to make the trip smoother."

“Oh, those things, it's like a huge covered cart. Seen some of them laying around before."

“Right. They really were a big part of our lives, but so common we never really thought about them much."

“Well, they're helping to make our walk faster, too. Just clear, open path."

He chuckled lightly to himself. It felt so odd for him to be able to walk down the middle of the road, let alone with this type of company.

She turned back to him, walking backwards for a moment. “Something funny, Skinny?"

“No, just thinking about things."

She squinted at him. “Not me, I hope."

“What? No, just where I am now. A couple weeks ago, I was a block of ice. Now I'm heading out to parts unknown with an anthro girl to raid homes for salvage."

She wanted to comment on something, but struggled to. “They're not homes anymore, they're ruins."

“Heh. If you say so." He returned. She turned back, her colorful hair flipping back with her. He sped up a bit to catch up with her, so he wasn't just looking at her back all the time. When he caught up to her, she sniffed the air. She had done it earlier before they left, but now he was sweating from the hike. She didn't comment on it.

“So, you were really frozen, huh? What's it like?"

“I can't remember, honestly, and I guess that means it worked. You just go to sleep one moment, and wake up the next, no dreams or anything. You wake up slowly, like your senses come back one by one. You feel really weak and confused, lost. At least, that's what I experienced."

She frowned. “Dang. That would be an awful sleep, no dreams? Gotta dream about something."

“Not that time, sadly. And then waking up into the nightmare of... whatever that was."

Kelsey took some interest in that, as she didn't know much about it, either. “Yeah, rumor is they stick something in your arm that tracks everything you say and do?"

“Uh huh."

“What's the point?"

“Tyrants are always afraid people will have any kind of freedom. You're not allowed to talk, you might tell someone something that will make them think for themselves. They don't want that, so they want something around all the time that can punish you."

She winced and shrugged at such a foreign concept. “That's... I don't know, just absurd. Can't imagine being such a control freak."

He shook his head. “I wish I could say the same. Part of why I like it here. Nobody cares if I'm thinking, as long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and minding my own business. Reminds me of home, the real home."

There was a lull in the conversation after that. He tried to think of some more things to talk about, but he was at a loss for words.

“So, uhh... I've noticed you seem to have the same sort of diet humans do."

“What do you mean?"

“I mean, canines mostly eat meat, moose eat plants, but anthros, you seem to eat everything."

“Oh, I guess that's something we inherited from that human past of ours. Kind of got their teeth, see?" She opened her mouth to him a bit, and in it was a strange brew of teeth, human incisors and molars, but canine cuspids and bicuspids. Perfect for grinding plants but also tearing flesh.

He looked at them curiously. “Interesting..." He chuckled a bit. “And, allergies?"

She squinted at his grilling, but it seemed nobody had really alleviated his curiosity these past weeks. “Who, me?"

“I mean, in general. Canines have severe and sometimes fatal reactions to chocolate, cinnamon, grapes, onions and, garlic. We were always warned to never let a dog eat them. Did that carry over to anthros?"

She shook her head. “I don't know what chocolate or cinnamon are, don't grow any of that around here, but grapes, onions and garlic are around. I've never heard of anyone, including me, having a problem with them."

“Hmm. Looks like you got the best of both worlds. Better senses, better digestion, better coat. What's even the point of being a human?" She was silent at his comment, considering her existence. “Does that... seem weird to you at all? Being part human in some way?"

“Nope. I mean, the history is weird, what I've heard of it. But, I don't really care about that. I've always been like this, my father, my mother, my sister, my town... we're all just like this. Some are dogs, some are cats, some are birds. But we just are."

“Mm. The anthro paradigm."

Kelsey shook her head and scoffed lightly. “Fancy words, Skinny." Seemed she wasn't the erudite type. “I always assumed humans were dumb, for living in those hives of theirs."

“So you do know about them, right?"

“Heard about 'em. Scouts, messengers, the like. I hear they all live in little boxes, and just scurry about from one box to another, like big rats. And that arm thing that just dominates them. It just seems really dumb to me."

“Humans..." He grumbled. It was hard to reconcile the few recent years of human life he got to experience, and the day or so he spent as a number. “...they're complicated."

“Aren't we all." She replied, eyes scanning the area as they continued to follow the road.

“Most were just nice, simple, got along alright. But the bad ones, they just... sunk their claws right into everything. If there was anything good, if they touched it, it would be bad. They were poison."

“Hmph. And I guess that's what happened, huh?"

He nodded, solemnly. It was as simple as he could make it. “Yeah."

His thoughts were interrupted as a clacking appeared on the road. Quieter, but growing louder. From behind them, someone was running up the road.

“Huh?" Erik stupidly reacted to the running figure.

Kelsey looked back to see him, then looked back to Erik. “Oh, that's just the Coyote Courier."

“Coyote Courier?" He echoed.

The brown, fuzzy man got closer, then zipped past them at a sprinting speed, a backpack he wore lightly bouncing as it was strapped to his body.

“Hey 'yote!" Kelsey called, waving to him. He just raised his paw in the air in acknowledgment, as he continued to run, eventually disappearing over a crest on the road. Kelsey chuckled. “Yeah, Coyote Courier. He's... well, he's a courier. Who runs between towns, delivering messages and stuff."

“And he's a coyote."

“Right."

Erik shrugged. “I don't know what I expected."

“One of the nearby towns writes a lot of reports. Sometimes we get to read them, news and things like that. It's thanks to him that we get to find out what's happening around us."

He nodded. It was rare to think of the news as being a good and useful thing, but in such a microcosm of the world, the local news was just that.

Kelsey never seemed to slow down. Her legs were strong and healthy from hiking almost nonstop most of her days. She pointed up ahead, to her left, to the same patch of forest they had been walking next to all this time on the road. “There's the crossing, let's go."

Erik followed, but didn't see much to denote a crossing. Maybe it was the dead tree? A bird nest? “Hmm. Hope you know your way back, because I'll surely get lost. None of this dense forest looks any different to me."

She shook her head with a scoff as they pressed on through the brush. “Humans just clear a path to where they're going and follow it back? In a big metal box?"

“Well, there's a process involved, but, basically."

“That's no good. Can't enjoy the world if you're just flattening it. Well, hopefully you'll pick up some good travel habits from me. Guess I should start teaching." She looked back to him and smirked, pushing a branch aside. “Lesson one..." She let go of the branch, and Erik took it in the chest.

“Ungh!"

“Lesson one, don't let your guard down." She pointed a finger knowingly, while he looked at her, a bit incensed. “Anthros may be mostly peaceful to each other, but some scavvers aren't friendly to others, see 'em as competition. Hunters still do their work out here. And some of the wildlife still sees us as food. Hope you can fight if you need to."

He brushed the offending branch aside. “Right. That makes sense."

“Second lesson... travel quiet. We don't wanna attract other scavvers or wildlife, I don't wanna fuck with a big cat. And we don't wanna scare away the game from hunters. So until we reach a rest spot, let's keep it down in the forest."

Erik took the advice and simply nodded.

They continued marching on for an hour or so. The terrain of the forest made for a slow hike, up and down drumlins with rocky outcroppings, around trees and fallen logs, and over small creeks. The landscape was rather familiar, as he was originally from this sort of biome. But yammering about it wouldn't do much, he figured, the only person who could reminisce about it with him was Vera. Kelsey couldn't see it the same way as he could. He knew he needed to start letting go of the past. That world was gone now, and this was his world now, the Wildlands.

Kelsey stopped, and pointed up ahead to him. “Look, there's a place."

Erik caught up to her and took a look as well. On the edge of the water, a once nice house, now all dilapidated and coated in moss and vines. “Looks rough."

“Might be some good stuff in there, come on."

They moved ahead to the old house, and climbed the couple of steps to the front door. It had a bunch of big scratches on it, but was still closed. Kelsey tried the handle. “Locked... let's try the back door." They waded through the tall grass and weeds around the building, and scaled the rickety old deck at the back. Under the moss and vines, the wood was rotten and punky from being so near the water. The back door was already opened. “Hm. Someone already beat us here."

Kelsey led the way, moving through the door into the ruined house. The carpet was spongy and damp under her feet, as she stopped to listen to for anything. “Doesn't seem like anyone's here. Let's start looking." She began to peruse shelves nearby.

“What are we looking for? We're nowhere near where we wanted to be, right?"

“Anything useful. And no, but I won't pass up a scrounge."

Erik scanned around at what was left in the house. Old, moldy magazines, completely illegible. A plastic airplane model, partially disintegrated by the sun. A bullet casing necklace.

“Looks like a guy lived here."

“Good, they have the best stuff. Those human women, I don't know what they even did in life, but they don't have anything of value left behind." Kelsey chuckled. “Oh, screwdriver." She pocketed a tiny, red Robertson screwdriver.

Erik grumbled. “Not a lot, I guess.."

She snorted a little laugh before going back to picking through the wreckage. “Paperclips, okay, take that. Dead elastics. Melted eraser. Purse full of... I don't know?" She held up a black pouch, trying to operate the zipper with her lightly clawed fingers.

“You don't know?" Erik echoed.

She took a thin, long jagged piece of metal out of the pouch. “Nope. No idea what this is. Toothpick?" She put the metal piece to her teeth. “Toothpick, I think. Weird."

Erik looked over, seeing the sun glint off of it. “Oh. That's a lockpick. You found a bag of lockpicks?"

“Lockpick, hmm?" She raised an eyebrow in interest. “That sounds promising. How's it work?"

“It's... really complicated. Practically an art to use them right. But if you do it right, you can use them to open up doors."

“Well. There's about a dozen in here. Better take 'em, you can probably use 'em better than I can." She tossed the pouch to him, and he stuffed it in his bag.

The two poked around the house a bit, not finding much else. Almost everything of value had been lifted already or broken. The upstairs, the kitchen, the bathroom, not much remained without needing tools. A facecloth in the bathroom seemed okay. Under the stairs was another door, which was also locked. The door had several deep scratches in it and a few bash marks from someone trying to force their way in, to no avail.

“Looks like some raccoons already tried this door. Think you can pick the lock?"

He shook his head. “No. But I could try..."

She shrugged and crossed her arms. “We've got some time to try. Give it a go."

Erik took the pouch out and took out the lockpicks, looking at each one. They had been used before, each one was scraped up, but they were definitely of a cheap manufacture. He chose a tensioner and took the rake, and as he attempted to put them into the knob's lock, he also tried to remember how to do any of this. It was such an odd thing for him to try to recall, not really something he was very experienced in. But in this world, maybe he was one of the only ones. That's why the picks were left behind. He turned the tensioner and began to rake the inside of the lock.

“Is this how it works?" Kelsey asked, curiously watching him.

He shrugged a bit as he continued attacking the stiff old lock. “Kind of... good ones would have gotten this open already, I bet."

“What are you doing in there anyway?"

He tried to explain it in the simplest terms he could. “Inside of locks, there's a bunch of little metal pins that stop it from moving, until the key is put in. I'm trying to use this pick to move the pins out of the way so I can turn the lock, like it's got a key in it."

“Hmm. Complicated." She replied, waiting a moment, before changing the subject. “Hey Skinny, what do you smell right now?"

“Mold? Dust and dirt? Why?"

She cocked her head. “Can't smell me?"

“No, why?"

“Huh, just wondering. I guess human noses aren't very strong."

He continued focusing on the lock in front of him. “Right. I guess you can smell me."

She snorted. “Yeah. It's weird. Besides the bath, chickens and hay and... well, I don't know what you smell like."

“Sorry. I'll try to keep it down."

“You can do that?"

He smirked, continuing to work at the lock. “No."

Kelsey crossed her arms and smirked, too. “Smartass."

About another minute of trying and it clicked. The door creaked open slightly, the hinges having been rusted from years of neglect. He looked back to Kelsey in surprise, as she did the same.

“No way."

“No way!"

“Heh, I didn't think that would work. Must be a shitty lock."

She patted him on the shoulder as she went to push the door open. “No, you're just a champ. Good work, Skinny."

Erik felt like he was some sort of Egyptologist, studying the ancient ruins of his own civilization, walking through the door into the musty old basement. It was dark inside, darker than was useful.

“I can barely see what we're doing in here. Wish I had a flashlight."

“Yeah. I'll have to light a candle."

Kelsey went back up the stairs to the light, took a tealight out of her bag, and lit it with a lighter. Amazingly, both of those things still worked. She held the tealight on her paw as she went down the stairs, the tiny flame casting enough light that they could sort of see what they were looking at. A young man's room, full of entertainment and nifty gadgets, almost all of it completely wasted now. Erik was immediately drawn to the desk, to the computer. A dusty black box, that clearly once hummed with the life of electricity.

He undid the thumbscrews and opened it up, pulling spider webs off of the components. “3090. Huh. Just a little while ago, this would have been worth a few thousand dollars. Now it's just... worthless."

“What's this thing?" Kelsey asked, sliding up beside him.

“Computer."

“What's it do?"

“Communication, information, entertainment... It could do almost anything, as long as you had electricity."

“A magic box?"

“Basically, yeah. Almost everyone had a computer of some sort, we used them for damned near everything."

“Could it get you a wife?" Kelsey asked, mocking the magic box.

He was silent for a moment. He could have mentioned dating sites and forums and social games, but instead, didn't bother. “No. Nothing was any good at that."

She shook her head and turned away. “Funny priorities you humans had."

“Yeah..." He started opening drawers in the desk and looking around. He found an empty flashlight and a new pack of batteries. “Oh. We may just be in luck..." He opened the pack and inspected them. They didn't seem to have exploded or leaked yet. Popping out a couple, he put them in the flashlight. Miraculously, they worked, and the basement came to life with light.

Kelsey squinted at the sudden flood of light. “Well, you sure are making yourself useful, Skinny." She snuffed the candle to save it.

“Seems so." He took the batteries and pocketed the now opened pack, and began shining the light around the room. He jumped briefly, seeing what seemed to be a person in the corner, but realized it wasn't a person. It was an armor rack with a familiar set. “Huh, Roman legionary armor. Another several hundred dollars there, but this is all rusty and webbed by spiders." On the wall behind it was a rack with a small Roman shield and a matching gladius. “Looks like this guy liked his old Roman memories, and never got to use any of it. So much money and time spent, collecting all of this stuff."

Kelsey shrugged, taking a thing or two and stuffing them into her pouches. “Seems like that happened a lot. Lots of time wasted collecting things that don't matter and probably would never help."

“Well, the armor and the sword might be worth taking if they weren't so heavy. Not like we have to plug them in. But we have a long way to go still, right?"

“Yeah."

“Shame. Would be nice to have. Oh well. Back to the pile of lost memories, Roman larp gear."

He kept rummaging around, as Kelsey occasionally took things from around the room and stuffed them into her pouches. In a drawer were some clothes, not much survived the long days untouched, but some were fine. He found a blue ringer t-shirt and some black khakis in his size, with a belt. Also two pairs of surviving underwear and socks he could easily jam into his pack.

“Oh, score!" He proclaimed, as she looked to him. “Clothes! Real people clothes! I don't have to wear this stupid jumpsuit thing anymore!"

She smirked at him, fists on her hips. “You get any more excited, you're gonna pop right out of that thing."

“I think I will." He chuckled, then realized he'd have to change in front of her. “Could you, uh, give me a minute...?"

She smirked again, this time, mischievously. “Wouldn't want me to see how pale you are under that thing, huh? Fine, I think we've gotten all we'll plunder from here. Let's split. Meet you upstairs."

Before they left the house, Erik locked the basement door again and closed it. He could open it again with the picks if they ever had to come back.

“Alright. Let's keep moving, the town is a ways off still." Kelsey nodded to him. “You ready?"

“Yeah, I'm ready." He replied with some enthusiasm, now wearing decent clothes. He could only assume he smelled better not wearing that jumpsuit anymore.