FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Higher and higher into the hills the bus continued to climb, tired wheels and rusted brakes squeaking with an uncomfortable grind every time that the vehicle had slow down in order to navigate a turn.

Like most field trips, the ride to the destination felt like the longest part, and all of the students on the bus knew that it was going to be over before they had their fill, but for those kids who would have preferred to go to a museum or an art gallery, this wasn't going to be the trip of a lifetime, regardless.

"Now who can tell me a little bit more about the kind of trees that are all around us, hm?" the teacher asked, standing up near the front of the bus and trying to keep the students engaged. It was a struggle in the modern day, as so many of the kids were carrying smartphones and other portable electronics, meaning that they could easily ignore their teacher, and the gorgeous nature that was passing by them on all sides. "They're pine trees, but does anyone know what family they belong to?"

One of the very few people on the bus who could have answered the question was too busy staring out the window with wide, curious eyes of blue. She'd never been so high up in the mountains before, and annoying as it was to the student sitting next to her, the bushy tip of her long, rope-like tail was swiping back and forth with the occasional flicker of excitement.

The teacher waited for a moment, and managed to keep a dead smile on her face when none of the students responded. "Well, class...a pine tree is a coniferous tree, and it comes from the family Pinaceae! If you can remember that the name of a pine tree is derived from the family title, you'll find that it's a very easy fact to remember, and a fun one at that!"

At that point in her teaching career, Emily was already starting to decline into the sad and painful reality that her students, despite only being in high school, were already over the idea of a cheerful, peppy teacher who tried to engage them. These were teenagers; disconnected from the world, more afraid of being judged by their peers for answering a simple question than they were of death, and that yearning for social acceptance left them lacking concern about their studies, or even responding to their teacher.

Poor Miss Emily sat down in her seat on the bus with a heavy sigh, not even sure how to address the class, after that. She could hear a few snickers near the back end, and she did what she could to ignore the sound, preferring to focus on the one student that was actually looking out the window the entire time. Perhaps there's some hope for the future after all, she thought, before her mind drifted onto the happier prospect of when she'd have a chance to sneak her next cigarette.

"You. Are hitting. My face."

Gloria certainly didn't mean to be rude, but the bushy tip of her tail continued sweeping upon Kira's cheek as if it were a broom upon a dusty floor, struggling to contain a plentiful mess. "O-oh, I'm sorry! I didn't...I..." she trailed off quietly, feeling a bit awkward to have made contact with her seat mate in that way. "I just got caught up in the view. It's really beautiful out here."

"Yeah, I guess it's okay," Kira agreed, though she was hardly paying attention to the outside world. She was more of the standard teenager, scrolling constantly through updates and notifications, giving more notice to the latest gossip news than she was to the splendor of nature around her. High up as they were in the mountains, the woods were growing truly thick, and other than the designated walking trails that were already absent of trees, it was getting difficult to find proper gaps between the trunks. "Still can't wait to be home, though."

"You're really not excited to be out here?" Gloria asked, as she settled back down in her seat and rested her shoulders against the backrest. "This is one of the biggest state parks in the country, and it's just filled with all kinds of trees and flowers! It'll be really great to reconnect with the outdoors."

Kira shrugged. "I can set a flower as the background on my phone, and I've got trees in my front yard. I don't know if I'd consider this all that special, really."

Between Gloria, a bovine with the heart of a flower child, and Kira, a true product of her generation, there was definitely a culture gap, and because of the way the field trip was being run, they were going to have to cross that gap sooner, rather than later.

"We're nearing the summit," Miss Emily pointed out, as she stood from her seat once more, although with a bit less cheer in her voice this time around. "Remember, you've been put into pairs, and you are not to separate from your partners for any reason. You'll be free to wander the trails and explore the nature exhibits at your leisure, but only the trails that are marked as open. Does everyone understand?"

While Miss Emily couldn't have been much more straightforward with her instructions, she wasn't at all surprised to hear only a few responses, and most of them were mumbles or murmurs of "Uh huh" or "Okay."

The truth was that a good portion of the students didn't even hear the directions, but Gloria was paying attention, and her partner, Kira, was listening very closely. A playful grin was spreading across the vixen's muzzle as she contemplated the kind of trouble that she could get Gloria into as the bus finally finished the long, dreadfully slow climb to the so-called top of the mountain, though in reality, they were just at a small pull off, with a ranger's station and some other buildings around it.

"Okay, kids! Looks like we're here. Keep your partners close by at all times, and no matter what, be back to the parking lot by three PM! Miss Valerie will be helping me to round you all up, if we don't see you!"

The squirrel who was playing substitute teacher for the day wasn't exactly the kind of person that you would want looking for you if you were late to an appointment, but Gloria wasn't the least bit worried about that. She concerned herself with her appearance, first, tugging down on the gradient red and yellow of her top, making sure that it covered up her waist and midriff. It gave her a stark contrast in appearance to Kira, as the vixen left her own midriff exposed, showing off a slender tummy, a tiny navel and the soft, delicate white of her underbelly.

"Worried that someone was gonna try to sneak a peek at your butt or something?" Kira teased her partner as she stood up from her seat, watching the bus empty out in front of her.

Though thin, white fur covered the entirety of her face and muzzle, Gloria was quick to cover up the sides with her paws and hide her expression. "W-what? No! I...I didn't think that at all!"

Worried that her clothes might have been slipping a little in her seat, there was no doubt in Kira's mind that Gloria would be fiddling with her clothes for the rest of the afternoon, and she snickered at the thought as she hiked up her own britches, an interestingly dark shade of green that truly cause the pink of her small, short top to pop.

"Sure you weren't," Kira murmured, as she moved into the aisle, with Gloria right behind her. "You might get a little more attention from the boys if you did let them see something, though."

It might not have been visible, but bashful warmth was spreading across Gloria's expression and leaving her speechless. Trying not to draw too much attention to herself, she crossed her arms over her bust and walked along behind her partner, worried that she might be in over her head for the field trip.

"Keep coming, kids! Everyone off of the bus!" Miss Emily was instructing the kids out from the exit and to the side of the parking lot, having to take every necessary safety precaution, even if there were no other cars up at the summit to worry about. "Once you're all out and accounted for, you can move around the mountain freely, and there will be a few rangers out to answer any questions you might have about the different kinds of plants and wildlife that you encounter!"

Long, brown tresses that were tied into a french braid with a fittingly pink bow bounced upon the back of Kira's neck, next to the long, flowing locks of black that adorned Gloria, doing the same. The vixen wasn't in any kind of a huge rush to get out onto the hiking trails, and she had no interest in going into the buildings to look at nature exhibits or deal with rangers who would be overly eager to talk to someone, given how rare it was that a high school class actually made a field trip out of such a distant park.

Naturally, Gloria would have had a wonderful day making her way around the trails, and Kira was able to guess that when the bovine began stepping toward the first one that she could find, but there were already other students making their way to it, and that would definitely get in the way of the fun that she had planned.

Gloria was surprised to feel a tug on the back of her top, but she paused and whirled around to see Kira gesturing at the large, wooden map that was sitting at the front of the multiple trail heads. "Why don't we take a look at this, first? I dunno if I feel like doing that trail," Kira suggested.

Though Gloria couldn't imagine why the trail would have been a problem for Kira when the vixen was wearing better shoes for hiking than the sandals she foolishly wore, the bovine was agreeable enough, and shrugged it off as they walked over to the map together.

It only took a few moments of scanning for Kira to find a path between two of the trails that was marked as "closed for repairs," and the telltale grin was only growing wider on her muzzle as she looked over to the second and third trail heads. One of the trails had no one on it at all, and as if fate was tempting her to be naughty, it would take them right to the closed crossroad.

"Let's go down that one. I don't really feel like running into anyone else."

Growing suspicious of Kira's intentions, Gloria was hesitant to accept the choice, but she was certainly the more timid of the two personalities. "Just...just looking to get away from it all?" she asked, wondering just why Kira was so intent on staying away from the other students.

"Something like that."

Gloria cocked a brow. "Something like that?"

"Look, I know you're more into this nature stuff, but it's really not my thing. I just don't feel like getting bothered by some boring ranger or anything like that."

"Uh huh...and what about the other students?"

The pair were already making their way past the trail head, ignoring the warnings about the difficulty level of the hike itself and stepping down a few stairs that were made of nothing but the root pattern of the trees and the natural erosion of time. "Eh. Not really a big fan of most of our classmates, if I'm being honest," Kira claimed, and Gloria was surprised at just how quickly the vixen was opening up to her. It would have taken her months to admit something like that to someone else. "Besides, they'll just get in the way of our fun."

Gloria was starting to put her concerns to bed, opting to focus on the suddenly uneven trail and the fact that her sandals were constantly sliding...at least, until she heard that last bit. "Our fun?"

"Well, yeah. Who says that we have to do what Miss Emily told us to? There's a whole mountain up here for us to explore, and I'm not gonna waste my time going where someone else has gone before."

A few minutes of walking left the parking lot out of sight, but Gloria halted her path and looked back up to try and find it. They were definitely heading down the side of the mountain, and even from there, making the hike back would be a struggle for her. "Kira, we need to stay on the path. I don't want to find out what kind of trouble I'll get in if we leave it!"

"You've never taken a serious risk in your life, have you?" Kira asked, and though she was given the strict orders not to separate from her partner, she was already moving further ahead on the trail, and Gloria, taking her orders more seriously, was doing all that she could to keep up with the rigorous pace that the vixen was setting. Her long, flowing skirt, painted a gradient blue and pink as if it were pulled from the palette of the arctic, was getting covered in dirt and dust as she tried not to trip over herself, but her sandals offered no traction, and the trail was already more difficult than she anticipated.

It was only growing steeper as they continued, and if not for her concern about accountability, Gloria likely would have given up a long time before then. "I've taken plenty of risks, thank you very much...but this is just dangerous!" she called out, trying to get Kira to slow down. She knew that she wouldn't be able to keep pace for very much longer, and her lover for nature faulted for just a moment as an errant root caught the strap of her sandal.

The piece of footwear was yanked right off, and Gloria was sent tumbling forward. Her top was nearly ruined as her chest hit the ground, but thanks to the steep grade, she continued falling forward, rolling down the trail and wincing in pain as small rocks and twigs that were mingled in with the dirt scratched her flesh and left small tears in the delicate fabric of her clothing.

"Sometimes you need to get a little bit dangerous in l-...oh shit, Gloria!" Kira was just able to turn back and look in time to watch her partner nearly roll past, but she quickly knelt down and caught the bovine before she could roll any further. Her white fur was transformed from a pristine and glamorous coat to a spotted, dirty mess, and her clothes were ruined...but most annoyingly of all, her sandal was gone, leaving her to stand more heavily on one leg as Kira helped her up. "Why didn't you just say that you couldn't handle this trail if it was going to be this hard for you?"

"Because you were so determined to take it that I didn't want to stop you!" Gloria shouted back, holding her right arm with her left paw and trying to ignore the pain that was creeping up, now that her adrenaline was wearing off. Her eyes clearly watered, however, and her muzzle began to wrinkle with a quick sniffle as she combated a fit. "I don't even know if I c-can make it back up that grade!"

Genuinely sorry for what she'd caused, Kira's grin quickly melted into a sour frown, and she continued helping Gloria stand, even after the bovine was upright. "Well...the trail I was headed for might be closed, but if we take it across, it'll get us to a much easier one to get back up, even without your sandal."

Breaking the rules wasn't something Gloria wanted to consider, but being stuck halfway down a trail and needing to call for help was a terribly embarrassing thought. Thanks to her adolescent foolishness, Gloria preferred the idea of getting caught somewhere that she shouldn't be, rather than risking a classmate seeing her in a moment of weakness.

Her shoulders wobbled with a heavy sigh as she nodded. "Okay, f-fine. Let's try taking the trail across."

Up at the top of the trail, Miss Emily was calling out to anyone who could hear her to make their way back to the bus immediately, but under the thick, heavy canopy of the trees, the girls couldn't see the darkness of storm clouds gathering, and they were too far away to heed the warning.

**

Getting down to the trail wasn't much harder for the girls than the start of the trail head was, so it was something of a breeze for Kira, and a terrible effort for Gloria.

The closer they got to the closed down trail, however, the more Gloria could notice a shift in the temperature, and goosebumps covered her skin like a second coat of fur as Kira lead the charge.

"You're sure we're gonna be able to take this thing?" Gloria asked, figuring that there must have been some kind of a terrible danger for an entire trail to be closed. "What if it's even harder than this one?"

"Then you should probably wear real shoes to school for once," Kira muttered, but much as hubris weakened the earth beneath the feet of victory, moisture was collapsing the earth beneath her own shoes, and one of her legs kicked out, planting her backside right in the mud and leaving Gloria to giggle at her, even as she offered a paw of assistance."

"Looks like it's working out really well for you."

Kira took the paw, but shot a glare at Gloria. "I'm not the one who almost went for a tumble back down to the valley," her reminder left a sting on the bovine, but her rump was a little sore from the fall, and she was walking funny for it when they finally made it to the planks of wood that blocked off the forbidden trail. "And I'm also the one who's trying to help you out of here."

Moisture in the air was enough to collapse some of the dirt, but a rumble of thunder in the distance caused the ears of both the cow and the vixen to perk right up. The fur on the back of Kira's neck stood to attention as if it were charged with a burst of static, and a strange, faint pitter-patter followed the distant cracking of the air.

A few drops of rain managed to sneak through the canopy, and what started as a refreshing sprinkle was quickly growing into a concerning downpour.

"If this trail is already damaged, we don't have much time," Kira rationalized, not wanting to deal with the rain and potential obstacles. "We'd better get moving...come on!"

Gloria was rarely the type to hurry, but even she made haste as Kira climbed over the barricade, and the bovine was quick to follow. It seemed that the vixen was mindful of her pace this time, but the softening dirt was rapidly fading into an endless path of sticky, mushy mud, and her shoes were getting heavier and heavier with each passing step, already coated in a thin layer of dust and debris.

The suction of air being pushed out by her footsteps teased her ears with a messy schlop each time that she managed to lift a leg, but the domineering sound of rain overhead was drowning out everything else at the storm raged on. The girls were soaked from head to foot within minutes, but the rain wasn't enough to wash the mud from their ankles, and it wasn't long before Gloria lost her other sandal, leaving her back on even ground, but the smooth, gray surface of her hooves was completely caked over with the cool, brown mess, and her face twisted up in disgust as she kept on trudging forth, finding each step to be more of a struggle than the last.

"Kira, y-you've...you've gotta slow down!" she tried calling out, finding herself faint of breath already from the terrible effort she was putting forth, just to move. The mud looked as if it was crawling up her ankles, swallowing up the white fur as it passed across. "I can't keep up with you!"

Dealing with her own messy clothes and ruined shoes, Kira wasn't in the mood for complaints, but she was the one at the mercy of her partner when she found one of the reasons the trail was closed.

Schlrop! Up to the bottom of her thigh, Kira's entire leg was swallowed up by a small pothole, and just judging by the way that puddles of water were forming on the trail in front of her, she could gather that there were plenty more of them ahead. She wouldn't be able to navigate them alone, and despite the attitude she'd given Gloria all afternoon, the bovine was quick to fall to her knees and offer a paw. "Oh my gosh, Kira! Are y-you all right? That looked really painful!"

"Guess I'm g-gonna have to slow d-down for you, but don't worry. I'm o...okay," Kira replied, her breathing heavy as she twisted her leg from side to side, trying to wiggle it free from the hole. Her leg finally did pop free, but her shoe was still two feet under the mud when it did, leaving her hobbled, and the sock beneath completely dyed brown. "Aaaaand I need a new pair of shoes..."

The one that she was left with was more of a burden than anything, and Kira took time to kneel down in the river of slop and untie it, knowing that it would only make her legs heavier as they traversed the dangerous path. She knew that it was her fault that the pair were in the literal mess that they were, and such a kind soul as Gloria didn't deserve to end up stranded this way.

"Looks like we both do, if we ever get out of this," Gloria tried not to be so defeated her in words, but the rain was obscuring everything around them, and the path was difficult enough to navigate, even with the proper footwear. "I don't know if we can really get across this trail, though. Looks like the rainwater is making a waterfall up ahead...and if it is, I don't think we'll be able to make it across."

"I don't know how you can see anything in this rain," Kira argued, "But if I remember the map correctly, that waterfall was actually labeled on the trail! It must only form when there's a good storm...and it was really close to the easy trail on the other side!"

Gloria was beside herself with excitement. "A-are you sure, Kira?"

"I'm sure enough to try," Kira replied, and though it was more confident than sinister, a smirk was spreading across her muzzle once again, despite everything that had happened to them. "If...you're willing to try with me, that is?"

It turned out that a friend could be just as useful in helping to navigate a dangerous situation. Neither one of them was pleased, as Gloria could see mud sneaking up between the gap in her hooves, and Kira could feel the sticky, messy substance getting caught in the fur between her pawpads as they carried on, but their arms stayed around each other as they carefully navigated the dangerous, broken trail, a terrible mess...but they were better, stronger people for what they'd overcome.

Gloria was confident that they would make it out of the storm by the time they reached the other side, and Kira, for once, wasn't hurt for opening up her feelings to someone. The girls smiled at each other as they dealt with the unpleasant sensation of the mud beneath them, and focused on what a funny story this would be for them to share again, someday.