FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

Okay, this is the start to a new series that popped into my head as I was driving. It's going to be a semi-erotica series... that is to say that it will be a story with sex thrown in rather than sex with a story thrown in. I can't say I'll update on a regular basis, but I'll do what I can. As always, I do appreciate feedback and critiques. Enjoy!

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Chapter 1

All was not quiet on that crisp January day, the one that started one of the strangest adventures in my life. It was in my Junior year of college, days before the start of the new quarter. I had just returned from visiting my family for Christmas and New Years, and was anxious to not lose my finely honed edge.

*Swish!* *WHACK* "Damn it, Mari! That hurt!" Wincing behind my visor I stepped back from my opponent, rubbing at my upper left arm.

A flash of white and grey fur, speckled with black rosettes, a sharp-toothed grin, and laughing amber eyes greeted my outburst. "Well, Airy, that's what you get for letting your guard down. You know better than to lower your shield edge against a faster opponent."

Sighing, I raised my sword (well, my duct tape wrapped rattan stick) and saluted the saucy snow leopard. "Far be it for me to argue with a Lady," I said, earning a snort from Mari. "I yield. At least until I get a bit of rest."

"Awww. The holidays make you soft, Airy?" Mari's taunt hurt slightly, all the more for probably being correct. After returning the salute, she reached up and unbuckled her helmet. Pulling it from her head allowed her mane of brown hair to tumble down her back, a sight I never tired of seeing.

It was a face I knew well, from the rosettes and black eartips, to the way that the grey and white fur along her muzzle turned just so, to those amber eyes that captured me long ago. She was, in my mind, the most beautiful thing on this Earth. Mariona O'Neill: pre-Med student, Knight in the Society for Creative Anachronism, fine figure of a snow leopard, and my girlfriend for a year.

Unstrapping my shield, I reached up with my left hand to take off my own helmet, only to have that arm stop. The pain was not unbearable, but was definitely a surprise. My wince must have alarmed her as she dropped her helmet and approached me quickly. "Erhart, are you sure you are okay?"

"I thought I was, Mari." Testing the range of motion, I found that I could move my arm about half of it's normal path before the pain really set in. "You must have gotten me a bit better than we both thought."

"Okay, that's it. Get those arms, that breastplate and that gambeson off and sit your hairless butt down on that bench mister. I want to have a look at that." I knew that tone of voice from the past, and didn't argue one bit with her.

As she examined my wound, a bone bruise compounded by part of my armor cutting into my arm, she muttered darkly to herself. Finally she went to her bag and got out a first aid kit and started to tend to the damage. "Sorry, I forget that you don't have the same padding I do."

Of course, that was one of the major differences between her and I. Well, besides the gender difference. Here was this feline doing the easiest examination and treatment she would ever do for a wound of this sort. I am Erhart McClanan: Mechanical engineering and materials science major, Squire in the SCA, and a human.

"Okay, that should do it. I guess you're not going to be doing any more fighting today, at least not with a sword." Her grin was infectious, and soon I was grinning right along with her. "Let's pack it in and head back to the dorms. Meet you for dinner?"

Murmuring my assent, we packed up our gear and started the trudge back to our rooms. The transition from the warmth of the gym to the outdoors hit me like a slap to the face. Mari, for her part, seemed unphased. I could only figure that it was her snow leopard heritage that helped with that.

We walked in companionable silence, watching our breath mist up into the air. Nothing could change our good mood....

"Damn freak."

Except that. Turning my head slightly to look over Mari's head, I saw another human looking at the pair of us in utter disgust. "Hey, at least I'm not sitting in my room jerking off to porn." My response only seemed to irritate the fool further. To my disappointment, he didn't try anything physical, just flipped us off and walked away.

Mari's voice was soft, and I could hear the undertones of hurt in it. "Why can't they just leave us alone, Airy?"

Why indeed? The pair of us was a rarity, a mixed species couple. I have been asked in the past what it was like, and all I can point to was the way that mixed race couples were treated back in the early days of desegregation. It was legal, but not looked upon with any favor at all. Even by those that championed it.

"Eh, just forget about that looser. He was probably jealous that I snagged the most beautiful girl on campus." The smile, and faint blush, on her cheeks was more than enough for me. Without a word, we both leaned in to kiss....

*CRACKBOOM!*

The sound of a lightning bolt and thunder deafened me, and sent me sailing through the air. My last conscious thought was if Mari was safe, what had happened, and why did it have to happen when we were about to kiss?

***

Consciousness came slowly. Of course, being thrown through the air by a concussive blast will do that to a person. As I verified everything seemed to be working okay, my brain started to ask questions. What had happened? Had anyone else been hurt? Then the most important question was asked, where was Mari?

Sitting up rapidly, I found out, was not a good idea. Pushing the pain aside I rolled over and propped myself up, looking for her. Dimly, over a grass covered hillock that was nearby, I could see what looked to be her tabard as well as some of her fur. Unsteadily I got to my feet and staggered in that direction.

Mari began to stir as I reached her. I could hear soft mewls of distress and pain as she fought her way up to a sitting position. "Mari! Are you all right?" My distress made my voice slightly higher in pitch than normal, and from the way her ears laid back, it was probably the wrong pitch for her.

"Headache, definitely some bruising. Glad I was wearing my armor though." She rubbed her head, then shook it as if to clear out some cobwebs. "No concussion though, I think. What happened?"

"Good question, kitty." Now that I was sure that she was okay, I started to look around. I wanted to know what hit us, and who to kick in the sensitive spots because of it. No one hurt my lady, no one!

The first thing to register was that the college was gone. Not blown up, not shrouded in dust or mist, but honest-to-God *gone*. As in never there, mirage, poof! There were no buildings, no sidewalks, no electric lights, nothing. We were standing on some snow covered foothills in the middle of nowhere, rather than in a grassy area near the physics building where we should have been. "Oh, shit. Dorothy? We ain't in Kansas no more."

Mari blinked at me, then took a look herself. Her eyes widened to the point where she almost had an anime look, and her ears started whipping around in different directions, trying to find a familiar sound. As the moments passed, her tail started to fluff out like a giant spotted bottle brush.

When she turned back to me, I could see panic in her face. "Airy? Where are we? Where is the school? What are we going to do? I don't know how to...."

I reached over and pulled her into my arms. "It's okay, Mari. I may not know what happened or where we are, but I do know enough to keep us going for a while." This was something I hadn't expected. While I grew up in Montana, doing the camping thing every summer with my family and the Scouts, she was a city girl. Her idea of 'roughing it' was an SCA event in a park or public campground with electricity and showers.

I softly murmured things in her ears, trying to keep her calm as I rubbed her back through the armor. All the while, my brain started to spin as I thought about what we needed. Shelter first, maybe a good cave if we were lucky. Food next, there were enough branches to form a few figure four deadfall traps, but what to bait them with?

"Well now, isn't that a disgusting sight?"

The new, rough sounding voice had an odd intonation to it, and it caused me to turn and look. Just across the small clearing we were in there were three furs that all looked like refugees from a seedy Renaissance Festival. Two foxes and a wolf, and all looking at me like I was a bug about to be flattened.

"A human pawing over a lady, that can not be tolerated." The wolf turned and spat as he spoke. "What do you think boys?"

The seedier of the two foxes leered at Mari then looked to the wolf, "I say the lady'd be right willing to reward us for saving her." He then looked back to her, his thoughts obvious in his eyes. "Right willing."

"Nar... the priests dun like it when we mix wi' felines." The less seedy fox nudged the other.

"Regardless, I do think some 'thanks' would be in order on her part." The wolf stretched then casually placed his hand on the hilt of a sword at his side. "Human, why don't you save yourself some pain and get whatever you own and bring it here. I promise you'll die quickly if you do."

I gave mari a quick hug, then moved to pick up our bags. I wasn't doing it out of any desire to save my hide (that would have been pointless), but rather to try to give her time to get away. Mari, for her part, was starting to get mad, but neither of us was armed and only she was armored.

The first bag I picked up was mine, and I heard a faint 'clink'. When I opened the bag, I saw my breastplate and helmet, but what I didn't see were the rattan sword and axes that I normally used. Instead I saw actual bladed weapons. Where they came from, I had no idea, but I wasn't going to look providence in the mouth.

Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I moved to Mari's bag. After verifying that the contents had changed in hers as well, I started making my way back. The bandit trio had moved about halfway to Mari by the time I reached her, eager for their 'prize' I supposed. I slumped to the ground, seeming exhausted as I drew alongside Mari, her bag falling to the ground next to her.

I let my bag sag to the ground, the faint sound of metal on metal causing Mari to look at me. I waited, 'panting' while the trio closed. Unobtrusively opening my bags ties. When they were about two-thirds of the way to us, I suddenly reached into my bag and grabbed the two wooden handles I knew I'd find.

Standing up quickly, I faced the trio holding a pair of bearded axes. I wasn't entirely comfortable fighting with two weapons, but it was my best option at the time.

Surprised by my sudden defiance, the wolf gestured for one of the foxes to close. I'm sure he wanted to test my skill. The 'worrier' fox got the short end of the stick and came forward with his sword drawn.

He knew how to use it, but not as well as some folks I had fought before. His swings were ill-timed and a bit reaching. I forced myself to let him keep swinging at me, hearing Mari rummaging in her bag and coming up with her sword. Her gasp at finding metal rather than solid grass told me she had found it.

"Mari, my broadsword. Spanache!" I hoped she had understood what I meant, because at that moment the other two joined the fray. Both foxes after me, and the wolf going for Mari.

I don't remember much of my fight, I never do. From what I gathered afterwards, it took me about three minutes of solid fighting to disarm and kill one of the foxes, then finishing the other quickly once one of my axes hooked the quillions of his sword and opened his guard completely. Though I've hunted, I was surprised by the amount of blood that covered me. Definitely very different from killing at a distance.

Mari's fight was still going as I finished. Her brigandine armor was showing a few cuts where sword strokes had gotten through, but I could not see any blood on her. As I had hoped, she was using both of our swords in unison, using both to protect herself from the much stronger wolf.

He was much better than the foxes, for all I knew he might have been a mercenary or something. As I was about to join in after gaining a bit of breath back, the fight ended. The wolf had tried to use a diagonal swing to get through her armor, and Mari simply ducked, then followed the same line the wolf used as she stood.

Mari was covered in blood and worse as the wolf blinked stupidly at her, then fell at her feet. She looked down at her fallen opponent, breathing heavily, then the swords fell from her grip as she started to shake.

Dropping my axes, I ran to her and caught her just as she started to fall. She clutched at me and started half coughing. I turned her away from the body, as well as myself, and held her as the contents of her stomach came up in a flood.

Once she was finished retching, I helped Mari stand and led her over to sit on a rock, facing away from the carnage. After recovering and cleaning our weapons I did something I have never been able to forgive myself for. I looted the bodies.

They didn't have much: a few bits of jewelery and one or two coins of brass or copper. While doing this, I also found they were lighter than I expected. They probably hadn't been eating well.

After replacing our things in our bags, I shouldered them both and headed back to Mari. She was staring off into space, and barely reacted as I got her to her feet and moving again.

I knew we needed shelter, so I led us along the bandits' back trail. They had to be holing up somewhere. I knew it was risky, there might have been others at their camp, but it was our best shot.

We stumbled along for what seemed like an eternity. I doubt we travelled more than two miles, but it certainly felt like more. As it turned out, their 'camp' was a small one-room building with a fireplace. It fairly screamed 'peasant hovel', but it was just what we needed.

A quick trek around showed no other trails headed out, and no smoke indicated there was no one inside. The inside matched the outside. There were three sleeping pallets bedecked with hides, a barrel that could possibly double as a bath, various eating instruments, and one good quality bow with some arrows. What food was in the place was predominately cheese. The Ritz-Carlton it was not.

I guided Mari to one of the pallets and got her to sit. She was still disconnected, and every attempt to get her to talk seemed to fall on deaf ears. Sighing, I placed her distress out of my mind for the moment and considered the food option.

We both needed something more substantial than cheese, and the bow gave me an idea. I reexamined the bow, and determined that it was probably the best thing I had found all day. The limbs were in very good condition, the string was waxed, and there was no sign of rot in any part of it. The arrows were also in very good condition, the tips were leaf bladed which was the medieval equivaliant of a broadhead point.

With one last look at Mari, one she did not return, I grabbed the bow, arrows, my equipment bag, and one of my axes and headed back out into the forest. I had bow-hunted back home from an early age, and the memories came back in a flood. The details aren't important, but what was important was that I was able to find a deer, kill it, butcher it, and return to the camp with the meat wrapped in the bag.

As I approached, I saw smoke rising from the chimney of the fireplace. Worried, I hurried my step and rushed in through the door. I suppose, with hindsight, that I should have knocked first. Part of me has always been glad I didn't though.

What greeted my eyes was not another bandit, or Mari in dire peril. It was, instead, Mari standing in the barrel without a stitch on. She was scrubbing herself hard, tears rolling down her face. Those marvelous, amber eyes looked up at me with such pain it was almost a physical blow.

"It won't come off, Airy.... The blood won't come off. No matter how hard I try, it won't come off." The pain in her voice was just as strong as the pain in her eyes. Her fur was clean, that much I could see, but like Lady Macbeth she could not get the blood off of her conscience.

What had to be killing her was the fact that, since she was pre-med, she firmly believed in the Hippocratic oath: First do no harm. Yet she had, no matter the reasons why, killed another. Add to that the fact that she had never so much as hunted, and that this had to be the first death she had seen, and it was a wonder she was able to even speak.

Words, however, were not what she needed. Placing everything I had with me on the floor near the door, I walked silently over to her. I took the cloth from her hand and, though my hormones were screaming other ideas at me, I simply wrapped my arms around her and held her.

Her tears redoubled, and I could feel her shaking in my arms. This was a pain I knew I could not make better, only time could. I did start making soothing sounds, encouraging her to cry out her pain. I won't say I wasn't aware of the fact that I was holding her naked body against me, but I will say that I did not want to take advantage of her weakness.

Eventually her tears dried, and the sobs stopped. Without looking, I reached for one of the hides and put it around her shoulders to give her some modesty. Pulling back slightly, I looked into her eyes. "I won't ask if you're feeling better, but are you okay?"

"No, but I will be." One more hug, followed by a kiss, and I turned and stepped away, giving her the time to step out of the bath and find something suitable to wear. As she was doing so, I put some more logs on the fireplace and stoked the fire.

The rest of the evening was spent in silence. I emptied the barrel, melted some water and had a quick bath of my own. I then set the meat over the coals to cook as I washed our clothing, finally making them as clean as could be.

Out of deference to her fragile state, I cooked the meat as well done as I could. I was pretty sure she appreciated it. Once we were clean as could be, and fed, I ran the bar through the loops on the door to lock it. We then retired to the pallets and went to sleep.

***

Later that night, a movement on my pallet woke me. I was not alone, and the breathing I heard had what sounded like sobs every now and again. Slitting my eyes, I saw that Mari had climbed into bed with me. "Mari?"

She didn't respond with words, instead she simply wrapped her arms around me and held me close. I returned the embrace, only to find that she was, once again, without clothing.

I started to pull back to question her, but instead she pulled my head towards her and kissed me long and hard. We had never tongue kissed before, and the feeling was both different and exciting.

The slight roughness of her tongue against my smoother one put all other kisses I had had in the past in the shade. This, of course, got my maleness into the act as well. It had been two years since I had last been with a female, and it seemed my body was going to demand that I remedy that situation.

After a few minutes of kissing, I decided to do something else. I slid one hand down her back, following her spine, until I reached her tail. While I was experienced with human women, since I started dating Mari I had read up on furs. With a gentle touch, I curled my middle finger around the base of her tail while keeping my thumb on the top. Slowly, I started to rub both fingers from side to side in a twisting motion.

Her reaction was immediate. A loud mewl followed by a yowl greeted my efforts, and the kisses turned even more passionate. Her leg hooked over mine, and tried to pull me closer. One of her hands reached down for my member, and started stroking it through my underwear.

This mutual petting only lasted a few seconds before she expressed her claws and freed my member from its flimsy prison. Wordlessly she rolled onto her back, taking me with her, and did her best to get us into position for what she was clearly needing.

What happened next, I blame on my hormones. If we hadn't have dealt with the stress earlier, and I had had a chance to plan things out, it would not have occurred. Knowing what she wanted, I gave it to her. As she tried to position me, I started rubbing forward against her.

Without warning, or forethought, I slipped into her and hilted myself with the first thrust. A yowl of pain was torn from both our throats: hers as I took her maidenhead, and my own as her claws dug into my back from the sudden pain.

The pain didn't stop either of us, the need was just too great. Together we moved, an almost frenzied pace between us. We needed to reaffirm we were alive, to reaffirm that we were not alone in this strange place.

To my regret, I came first. I bit down on her neck as I felt my seed spilling into her in a white torrent. Though I was spent, I did retain enough of my chivalry to force myself to continue until her own climax came in a yowl of pleasure.

I rested on my elbows above her as I waited for her to recover as well, her womanhood seeking to milk every drop from me. Once sense returned to her eyes, I leaned down and kissed her again. "Mari... I'm sorry."

Bright amber eyes met my brown ones. "Sorry? Why are you sorry? Was I so bad?"

"No... Mari, I didn't mean to hurt you. If I had known you were a virgin, I'd have taken it easier." Her hand came up to rest on my lips, silencing me.

"It's okay, Airy. We both needed that, I think. We can do better next time, but I had been planning on giving it to you for the last few months." She leaned up to kiss me, then pull me down on top of her. "I love you, Airy."

I rolled us onto our sides, my member slowly softening within her as we held each other. "I love you too, Mari. We'll get through this, and if there's a way back I'll find it."

As sleep started to claim us, I murmured one more thing to her. "Nos es unus." We are one.