FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

There was a knock at the door, and Atalanta perked her large, scaled head up from where it had been resting on her front, black paws. She was laying on a particularly padded cluster of pillows in the center of the room, a pile that she had meticulously spent half an hour perfecting. Her brown and white wings were tucked in comfortably against her sides.

"Come in?" She said towards the door, and the metal slid away to reveal a burly, rocky lizard on the other side. Teneticus. He stepped across the threshold, and he stood tall in the room with his back straight, especially tall from Atalanta's lowered position. His shoulders were bunched up against his neck, as if he thought that he would soon be compressed into a small coffin. His chest was a huge barrel of rocks. He waited for the door to automatically close behind him before speaking.

"Atalanta. How... is things?" He said awkwardly, in a voice that sounded even more gruff than it usually did. Atalanta cocked her head slightly, eyeing the man.

"... Fine," she answered, finally. She stayed silent while the lizard stared at her.

"Good, good..." He trailed off. His large hands came together and entwined their fingers while he watched intently. "Look," he said, looking up at her. He spoke as if he had to force the words out. "The crew, Monty, Melody, Lexi... They were talking, and they said that you let them..." He trailed off, again. "You know."

Atalanta tried to think. Those people had hung out with her in one of the break rooms on the ship during their free time a few days ago, relaxing. "I let them... Hang out with me?"

"No," he said. "Not specifically. They said you let them... You know," he repeated. "They said it was really... Pleasant. I wondered if I could..."

Atalanta stared blankly. Then, her long ears rose up as it came to her. Of course. This seemed to happen with every new person she met. She thought for a second, and then nodded, letting out a quiet breath. "Yeah, go ahead," she said, casually. The big lizard seemed rooted to the spot. She gave him a smile. "I won't bite," she added.

The lizard gave large, lumbering steps forward, and he found that he had significant height on the four-legged griffon. He knelt down on a knee, and held a hand towards her, fingers splayed. "Are you sure?" He asked.

She kept her smile. "I'm sure."

Teneticus tentatively pushed his hand into the brown feathers directly above where her body folded under her, resting on her front legs. He pushed his hand down with the direction of the feathers, then pulled his hand away and put it back where it was before, repeating the maneuver over and over. Atalanta cast her gaze beside the lizard, off into the corner of the room at nowhere in particular. This used to be embarrassing. Before she got to space, Atalanta didn't even know what petting was. Now, she had been pet at least once by every intelligent species she had ever spoken to.

"Try higher, on my neck," she said. Teneticus obliged, and delicately pushed below where the black scales on her head ended and the brown and white feathers began, stroking his hand down her front. He started to smile, and his shallow, nervous breath relaxed. Atalanta herself let out a pleasant sigh, and tried to not let her tail beat too obviously against the cushions behind her. Teneticus, starting to get uncomfortable on one knee, instead settled down onto both knees, and held his other, muscular hand directly above the top of her head, between her black ears. It was an offer, one she accepted by pushing her head up into his hand. He moved his hand back and down to the back of her neck, keeping contact with the black scales the entire way. He started experimenting, scrubbing into her feathers and scales with his fingers while his hand moved. Atalanta curled her paws into the cushion they rested on, almost forgetting to not pierce the fabric with her sharp, jet-black claws.

Eventually, Atalanta felt her head falling with the pleasure of the massage, and she rested her head on the lizard's open lap. It didn't feel awkward. It felt perfectly natural. The initial air of tension and anxiety that Teneticus had brought into the room with him had faded and been replaced with a close air of relaxed intimacy. The lizard's big hands reached forward to press and scrub into the brown and white feathers on her back, his hands drifting across her body freely. Sometimes, he brought his hands down to stroke at her sides, reading her body-language carefully to not put his hands anywhere too intimate. She could have spent hours enjoying his hands in her feathers and fur. Perhaps she did, as she became unaware of any time passing at all.

Eventually, there was a little chime on the intercom. Atalanta's relaxed ears shot up on instinct, and Teneticus gave a glance up towards the invisible speakers. It was the night-time chime, to alert the crew of the ship that the hallway lights would be dimming shortly and that the evening-crew were relieved of their duties. It took a moment, but the griffon raised her head off the lizard's lap, and Teneticus pulled his hands away. They looked at each other for a second. Neither of them could blush, but the looks on their faces were close. Atalanta smiled softly, and was almost surprised when the gruff, rocky lizard returned it.

"Wow," he said. "I thought they were messing with me when the other guys told me how good it felt to pet you." He heaved himself back up onto his feet with a grunt, and reached down one last time to give Atalanta another head-rub. She smiled widely up at him.

"Yeah," she said. "I never thought being pet would feel so good, but here we are."

He smiled down at her for a moment, and then he pulled his hand up and straightened his shirt. "I should probably... Get back to my own quarters."

"Of course," she said, pleasantly. Her fluffy tail beat against the cushions behind her, sending them flying. She tried to reel it in as well as she could. "We should do this again sometime. Feel free to drop by whenever we're both free again."

The lizard grinned, and nodded. "I'll take you up on that," He said. He left the room, and Atalanta ordered the room lights to dim. She rested her chin back on her paws - happy, relaxed, and sleepy. She knew she would have to preen her feathers extra well in the morning to make up for how they had been displaced, but it was worth it.