FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

Humming made me awaken, but not all at once. The first time I heard it I was asleep again just as I realized what it was. The second time I opened my eyes long enough to stare at a large fuzzy shape which only made sense when I felt it sniff me before they closed once more without comprehending whose nose it was. The third time I finally came around fully. Opening my mouth for a yawn, I gagged and recoiled from the sensation coming from it. The humming stopped and I heard the sound of something being dragged across the ground. Without opening my eyes, the scent of cool water reached my nose and I darted my head forward into the water tub. After the fourth time I scooped and threw back my head I shoved my head into the tub again and opened my eyes to shock myself awake.

Lifting my head up, dripping water everywhere I saw a paw curled around the water tub holding it in place for me. My right eye followed the limb up to its owner and I saw my mate laying against my side. He smelled relieved, and I leaned into him to kiss him under the jaw. I looked outside and sighed. I already knew.

How many days was I asleep?

Just under four and a half.

Did Tomoko or Thumper do this?

No. When I demanded they explain what happened to you they assured me it was perfectly natural for your body to heal itself in this way. Apparently when a female, like you. He kissed me, making me rumble contentedly. Is injured while pregnant their bodies will enter a fugue state as soon as it recognizes it is safe to heal.

Why do they keep speaking as if our bodies have minds of their own?

From what I can gather, they do. They are so large that they operate at a level of autonomy that seems as strange as the fact that we walk on four legs. So, I suppose you can say that our bodies are as alien as they actually are.

We have been like this for almost eight months, yet we still find surprise after surprise.

I liked this one. It kept you asleep and let you heal. I know you too well dear, to ever think that you would have allowed yourself to lay down and passively watch the world go by. Four days asleep has healed wounds that would have taken a month to heal otherwise.

He was right, and I closed my eyes to cast my mind back through my body until I found the steady quiet beats of my children. Serenely I lay against my mate just letting those calm rhythms wash over us both. As we melted into mutual bliss he began to thrum deep in his chest, and I enjoyed the comfort of his feeling and scent for a moment. Tilting my head into his once more I kissed and nipped at his neck and his jaw for several delicious seconds while his scent changed to a headier one of impassioned love.

Releasing the neck scales between my teeth I turned and yawned once more, and then dunked my head into the water tub. Sated, I raised my wet and dripping head to state my next intentions.

"I am hungry!"

"Tomoko said you would be when you awoke." My stomach thundered, making Tom chuff in laughter. "Violently hungry. So we have been saving up the scraps of the small kills that Sora and Kazane have made for the past few days. Alex and Allie are outside right now stirring up a pot of stew for you. Our new guide was kind enough to warn us three hours ago that you were going to awaken. It said..."

"Rise and smile Kim! Let's see those pearly fangs!"

I couldn't help myself and I cracked open my jaws to give it what it wanted. I much preferred this one over Thumper. Why did we have to suffer it so long, when this model was available all along?

"Thumper served its purpose! Although it will never really be gone it now watches quietly while I become bestest friends with you! Different times call for different approaches! A new stage of your interaction with humans has begun! Every smile I can coax out of you will be one to remember! Yay!"

I stumbled from what had been my sick bed for the past four plus days and stretched my body from one end to the other. Extending my neck and tail out, a cascading series of pops rushed along my spine making me dance giddily as the wave of sensation made me shiver from tip to snout. Flaring each wing one at a time I winced when they creaked loudly as tendons stretched and relaxed once more. Whatever else our bodies were capable of, they were not meant to be idle for very long, that was certain.

I swung my head back and forth and then lifted it to the sky to waggle it side to side. Making one last rotation of my neck and every limb I possessed I started to trot into the trees to relieve the nagging pressure reminding me I hadn't had a good shit in a while. I heard the soft thud of footsteps following me and I twisted my head backwards with a questioning tilt to it as Tom followed me.

"We have agreed since you've been asleep, no one leaves this clearing alone. Not even us. Things have only gotten worse, and Most of Stout's forces have been recalled, just like he said. I bobbed my head and continued into the woods. Questions began to race through my mind, but they could at least wait until after I had dug and filled a latrine pit. I sniffed out an area that hadn't been used lately and dug a hole two meters squared and three deep. When I felt empty and couldn't hear any more of the bizarre slurry of our shit/piss falling I backfilled the hole by kicking with my hind legs until the scent largely disappeared. Tom fell in on my flank as I strode away from the scene of the crime.

"I'm guessing that I have a lot to be filled in on..."

He made snorted and replied with a wry twist to his snout. "You could say that."

"Please start with telling me our children are safe and work outwards from there."

"Well, to start, look over there." He pointed his snout behind the shelter to our open field. Two of the six tan camouflaged tents remained, and judging by the number of antennas surrounding one, it was the command tent and a living quarters.

"Jerry, the mayor of Coeur d'Alene, and Colonel Stout have convinced the Governor to support a reduced presence here after the federal operation has ended. No full-time guard anymore. Just two squads. Each here on a weekly rotation, to act as a liaison and as communication control. Tomorrow the Governor is going to declare our property a safe haven for lost children of the egg until they can be rehabilitated. Or a safe place to rest for those that are no longer secure in their homes. In addition to the National Guard remnants, one patrol unit will be based here at all times, armed, in eight-hour shifts, handpicked by Jerry."

I saw the immediate tactical concern. "Yes... we will make a nice tasty piece of chewed ass for these marauding militia madmen. What will we do if we're attacked?"

"That's what the Guardsmen and the two patrolmen are for. Jerry rightly assumes that we will be able to hold off an attack, no how matter how large, until help arrives. We have to put in our fair share as well. So, every night, one of us takes a turn patrolling along with the cops. Last night it was Naruto." He extended a wing arm to point a claw at the far end of our shelter, behind the half closed curtain the father of the Suzuki family lay with his head tucked beneath his own wing. "Tonight it will be..."

"Me" I said immediately.

Tom reacted like he expected that answer. Which, of course, he should have. He kissed me. "Of course it will be."

"You still haven't answered my question. Our children?" I swung my head back and forth meaningfully. "Everyone else's children?"

"Angie has taken them for a ride. They have Haruto as an escort, who has promised that they will stay well above the ground, and far from any likely danger. George and Helen are glued to their phones in our house at the moment attempting to resolve their education."

"George? How is he?"

"His recovery will be long, but it will be a recovery. He was very lucky. Thanks to you. My Valkyrie."

I was so thrilled at his complement that I nibbled his ear frill, and then licked at it until he shivered.

"Who thought to call Allie back? Is Stout still here? What about our conversation with Laurence and Jerry? Where is Asuka? Has anyone talked to the media yet? Are there still shootings going on? How is the rest of the country, the rest of the world doing?"

"Holy shit Kim, slow down. We have all day to go over that. You've only been asleep for a few days, not years."

One of my questions was answered however when Asuka padded around from the front of the house. Tom explained that we were now taking turns just walking along the perimeter sniffing things out. An advantage that the cop currently sitting on my patio sipping at a coffee didn't have. I spied our German Shepherds laying nearby him however and was reminded that we weren't the only ones with sharp senses in the clearing.

Speaking of noses, I followed mine to the enticing aroma of the cauldron of soup heating up over our barbecue pit as Tom went to our house and stuck his head in. I guess I got too close to the unready meal for its attendants because the next thing I knew Allie was swatting at my nose with a fucking wooden oar.

"Ow! Bitch! I just wanted to sniff at it."

"It's good to see you too mate, but it ain't ready for you yet."

"How's it been going?" I asked her as I lay downwind of the pot and looked at it wistfully. "Haven't seen you since last week."

"Ah, you know. Balls to the wall when I keep getting called up to the trauma ward to treat a never ending series of wankers with bullet holes in them. I even treated your two friends that you pinned with a car after they tried to perforate you. One lost his left leg, the other will be shitting into a bag for the rest of his life, cops got 'em both locked to their cots pending trial last time I seen 'em. Besides, my bed is getting cold so I had to stop in to get Alex for a good rooting later on."

Her aforementioned fuck buddy laughed as she bumped her hips into his.

That was a bet I'd won months ago, when I had wagered that they'd be fucking in no time at all. Which they had been doing pretty often lately. Either that or they were exuberantly comparing their medical degrees. Or whatever doctors do with each other when they're rolling in the sack. Whatever it was I could hear it from my shelter. They better not have put any holes in my walls.

"Good... After what they did to George and Angie they are really fucking lucky they aren't fucking dead. The cock sucking bastards. You know, you could just wheel them out onto the roof, and I could save the taxpayers the trial."

"Yeah well." She stirred the pot. "What you did might've been acceptable at the time since they were trying to kill you and all. But it won't look good for you to throw a pair in wheelchairs off the roof of a 12-story building. Hell, if there wasn't mine and two other's sworn testimonies that you had gunshot wounds a few days ago, no one would believe that either."

I raised my wing to look under it and saw that, minus the immature scales growing back, the wounds had largely disappeared. Just leaving a trio of small angry looking puckers in the underlying hide. Even the wing itself seemed to have largely healed. Only a few smaller holes remained where there once were large tears. Tom wasn't shitting me about what almost three days in some kind of coma could do for us apparently. I wondered if males, and females that weren't knocked up, had the same healing abilities. I'd ask Prometheus about it later.

"So, you came by when I was out then?"

"The morning after you fell asleep me and my buddy over here." Alex looped his arm around her waist while they hugged. "Cut the lead out of you. That one that is always going on about smiles said it held you under for the operation, so you're welcome. On top of that I have to say I've never actually felt someone snore from two meters away. But I have now, so thanks for the amusing video. You should also know that when I tried to examine your eyes I got too close to your nostril and your inhalation almost sucked my arm up your nose.... Yeah, haha, laugh it up."

I dismissed the thought of Tomoko fucking me with once again to focus on what mattered. Just the thought of Allie's arm being pinned to my nose by the rushing wind made me roll onto my side and beat the ground as I roared. Laying on my flank panting, I wound down with small chuffs of continuing amusement until I was calm once more and rolled back to my stomach.

"While I was out, did you and Alex scan my babies again?"

"Yeah"

I waited, but that was it. "...And?"

She shrugged. "Fuck if I know. If I had a baby that looked like a winged crocodile in my uterus I'd be flipping out. But I suppose for you that would be normal so I should congratulate you on having four of them squirming in loops down there. That is, if normal means just looking like miniscule versions of you. None of their eggs seemed to be cracked if that is what you mean. Aren't you due to... I don't know...lay them or something?"

"Fuck if I know." I growled back at her. She smirked at me and returned to stirring my eagerly awaited meal. My stomach snarled its discontent loudly, causing ripples to form and collide back and forth in the soup. She stirred faster. I laughed.

"Tomoko!" It appeared on top of my back, flattening my spinal fin.

"Kim! Oh I am so happy to answer your questions! I hope that there will be many smiles today, and I am ready to make that count go as high as I can!" It beamed at me bouncing up and down excitedly. Even Alex and Allie smiled at the spunky thing.

"How long before I bring my eggs into the world. How long before I can see my new children's faces?"

"Oh! Oh! Kim! I'm so, so happy to tell you that you will see your beautiful eggs before the end of the month! 20 days, 7 hours, 14 minutes, and 34 seconds before the first bundle of happiness and joy enters the world! And from there it gets even better! Oh! You will have so many blissful days nuzzling and sharing your warmth with your eggs! Tom too! And Irma! Even Luke and Lucy! Your precious children! Your whole family will help! Everyone shares in providing for the young! Yep, yep! 23 months from now you will finally get to see your new children! They will have learned so much in the shell! They will be so smart! So very happy! Oh Kim! You don't know how much I envy you that you can truly feel what life means! To create it, to raise it, to nurture it, to lead it to the path of smiles!"

It bound forward and beckoned me close with its wing. "I am so happy! This calls for a nuzzle! C'mon Kim! Don't be shy!" It bound up my spine until it was in range of my head, shooting towards me like an AGM-114M, and slammed its snout into mine to rub it back and forth.

The rest of the part in our little slice of Arcadia came to the fire pit, and I was relieved to see that George was standing next to Helen. Even if most of his left side was covered in bandages.

"George, how are you holding up?"

Instead of answering he staggered over to me and hugged my neck. I felt tears run down my scales.

"Kim...Kim thank you. Thank you. Thank you for saving my family. I... You saved us. Kim, I was so scared! I didn't know if they got away, Angelina wouldn't leave, she wouldn't leave me. I could hear her calling for me. But I couldn't...I couldn't get to her... Thank you, Kim. Oh god, thank you so much. You saved us all."

To say that I was embarrassed would have been understating the case. So, I did the only thing I could think to do, I let him cry it out into my neck. Helen came forward and joined her husband in holding me and whispered her own thanks over and over again. Their tears began to taper off and I bent my head to nudge them both in the shoulders.

"I never hesitated for a second, and I would do it again, without a thought." I promised them. "George, how are your burns?"

He wiped his eyes on one of the bandages, cringing as the raw flesh underneath creased and twisted. "It doesn't feel good." I snorted. I'll fucking bet. "But since my family is still alive and with me all it will be is a hell of story."

"How do you feel about the fact that you were used?"

His shoulders slumped and he shook his head. "I...I don't know Kim. When I got here Helen and I had a long talk with that one you call Prometheus, and I just...I just don't know. I don't know how many times I'm going to say I don't know but that is the best and only way I can think to sum this situation up. Arguing with it, him, felt like arguing with a tornado after it flattens your house. It just is. I don't, I can't trust it. But it, and the others like it, refuse to acknowledge any other way. I feel like an ant under a magnifying glass. Placed into events that I barely understand, and completely at the mercy of something that only cares that I and my family exist in order to be used. Are they trying to save us by killing us? It just doesn't seem to make sense."

"I am sorry George! I am so sorry! But please do not feel that way! We help to guide to the path of the least unhappiness! Forces are at work even as we speak to reign in these boogeymen because of what they have done to you and others! You will see, I promise! Your unhappy tears will guarantee a future where Angie does not have to hide who she is and what she means for the world! You already know what I mean don't you? A brilliant artist at six years old! With 417 more years of life ahead of her! So many smiles!"

Helen and George sagged against each other with immense relief. Just like anyone else they were quick to trust good news. "She'll live through this... She'll live... That's all that matters."

"I only ask Helen and George that you not reveal such things to her. Please! The future is a very wiggly thing! So hard to pin down, and just when you think you have your teeth in it, more wiggles!"

Tom blinked at the odd description of time and then turned to nudge me with his shoulder. "Asuka wants to speak with you."

"About what?"

He shrugged his wings.

My head swung around to where she sat a bit apart from our circle. "Asuka, I'll speak with you as soon as my stomach stops trying to devour me from the inside out." She bobbed her head and lay down to wait patiently. The soup still wasn't done yet, according to the two stirring it. So I helped them along to its completion by licking them both in turn.

"Kim!" Alex irately yelled at me after swatting my tongue with his oar. "Trying to scare us isn't going to change the laws of physics! There's 300 liters of liquid in this thing!"

"You taste salty. I like salty!" I opened my mouth wide and was rewarded by Alex jamming the entire rowing oar into it, propping my jaws open like a car hood.

"Fuck it. I try to be nice and this is what I get? Go ahead, bite down on my spoon, and let me know what it feels like to get splinters in the roof of your mouth."

"I'm going to kill you."

"How can you still talk like... oh right..."

Contrary to how he expected this to go, I curled into myself until my tail could reach my mouth and then used the spike growing out of it to hook the oar and yank it from my mouth.

"Dick."

Allie wasn't helping this situation as, clutching her own stirring implement, she was convulsing on the ground crying in laughter. Ignoring her I swept my tail forward to get a look at the bone white spike growing from its side. Peering closely at it I could see how the scale and hide worked to form a heavy ridge around its base and how it had also gotten substantially longer over the past four days. It was at least half a meter long.

"Look at my neck." Tom interrupted the intense study of my new biological feature. "Prometheus tells me that these are actually parts of our spine sticking through our flesh. The one on my neck is about the same length as yours." Training my eye on the growth I could see the same ridge around the base of the fifteen-centimeter spike. Even weirder, since it grew straight up from his backbone I could see that his spinal fin had split into two to grow around it. Nudging it with my snout I asked him how it felt.

"Well since it's designed to be a weapon, it didn't hurt. But you can definitely feel it try to move with the vertebrae it grows from."

"How'd they grow so fast?"

"Your time nears Kim! Your evolutionary ancestors would have begun to seek out a lair at this point. Scary things often lurked within suitable locations. It would take both of a mated pair working in tandem to drive them away! The faster the spinal extensions grow, the better! Your neck growths will only get a tiny bit longer. But your tail spikes! Oh, so scary! They can be up to one meter long! Be careful not to tear your pillows!"

I looked down at the end of my tail and blankly slapped it into the ground a few times. The stinging sensation faint and distant while I watched my newly lengthened adornment punch holes into my yard.

"Is this the last thing that is going to change on us?" I asked bringing my head up. "Are there any more surprises that we have not been warned about? Or are we going to become even more monstrous than we already are? How much further are we going to be driven from who we were?"

Tomoko deflated like a popped balloon as its ever-present smile faded. "Kim..."

"Tell me! What else are you going to change about who we are? Who we were?"

For once, the damned thing spoke solemnly. "No more tricks about your body Kim. I promise you that. I also promise you that you are the same individual you were before we came to your world. The only thing left you that have to look forward to that you have not experienced is the laying of your children, and their hatching. Beyond that, there is nothing more to separate you further from your human children. Is that not what your question is really about? Kim, have you ever asked your Luke, your Lucy, about this? Please Kim, for your wellbeing, do not presume what you do not know. You do not know how they will see you in the future."

"But you do! Tell me! Tell me our future with our children!"

It sighed with its eyes closed before reopening them with a pained expression in them.

"My children mean more to us than my own life! Now they are not all even of the same species thanks to you."

"Kim..."

I started to cry as my worries bubbled to the surface. "My children. My family! When do I stop changing? Will my human children still be able to recognize me? Will they accept the lives I carry into our family? Will my new children accept Luke and Lucy? Can my family survive? Will they survive?"

"Kim..."

"Tell me!" I roared, my heart and eyes burning with anxiety as my little ones looped endlessly within my body.

Tomoko itself began to cry as I continued to assail it with question after question until it curled in on itself hidden beneath its wings. At last I stopped to listen to the tiny computer's pleas to stop hurting it.

After several minutes, it ceased its wailing and uncurled to look up at me with dried tears upon its snout. "I will not be able to convince you Kim. I apologize for not being able to ease your heart as I had promised. Let me introduce you to one who can." Flinging its wings wide, the glow in Tomoko's eyes boiled its tears away and began to spread.

...