FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 5

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As we enter the clearing the Thener walking next to me slows down considerably and then I notice him inside my head again.

"I'm taking us to see the Elder. She'll be the one who should know what would be the best course of action. As we'll want as few people listening in on our conversation odds are we'll have the discussion in one of our minds. And since there's more of us than there are of you, do you know how to enter other peoples' minds?" He asks while in what I suppose would be the entrance room to my head.

I stop my motion completely and am almost startled by his question. It wasn't even something I had even thought about being able to do.

"I didn't know that I could. I knew you could but I thought that it was either something that takes years of training and only something maybe a few of you could do," I respond.

"All Thener are born telepathic. There are only a few offspring that lack any ability whatsoever. As for training, there is some training involved in control and discipline on how far one is allowed to do in another's mind but the lack of memories will not likely remove the training spent on those skills. That's my guess anyway."

"I don't know," I respond, not really all that enthusiastic about the subject, "wouldn't I be invading their privacy by being somewhere I don't belong?"

"Nonsense. When dealing with other Thener you are more likely to find someone feeling offended that you aren't willing to talk to them telepathically than otherwise. Besides, you're only going to be going just inside their heads. Not nearly deep enough to learn what they wouldn't be willing to tell you themselves. You are only going in far enough so that they can hear your thoughts and you can hear theirs. Now, enter my mind," he commands.

I debate briefly on the merits of giving up this last surrender of being human, the notion that if I do what they do, I have to be what they are instead of just a human given a different shape. I seriously consider trying to run away but I have no clue how fast I can even manage in this behemoth of a body, ignoring completely what he would do if I did try. He turns around and then faces me, his head but inches from my own. With this proximity it would be impossible to escape now and so sighing internally I try to figure out how to enter his mind. My headache doesn't really make matters any easier as I can feel the pulsing throb from so many others so close; my mind working frantically to try and gather and analyze all of that information constantly. I can feel him in front of me, the heat of him. Various parts of my mind can almost feel a pulse coming out of him to the extent that even if I closed my eyes I would not be able to lose sight of exactly where he is. In my own mental hallway I picture myself moving out of the hallway entirely and find myself in a sort of void. But this void is not without direction. I can still feel my own body, still control it just as before. It is almost like sticking out one's tongue. If I stuck out my tongue it would no longer be in my mouth, not entirely. But at any moment if I so chose I could simply suck it back in and it'd be inside me again. I can also feel the pulses a little more strongly, the pulses creating a shape. But besides the pulse right in front of me, I can feel dozens of other ones, each as clear as the one in front, just with a different sense of distance in this featureless world.

Finally I reach where the closest pulse is and find myself, or at least the mental image of myself, standing in front of what looks like a casing. Thankfully it looks nothing at all like a wall of water and I stick my nose out to try and get a feel for the texture of it. The texture is rather soft and damp and seems to be like a thin fleshy membrane. I push into it and it yields and expands inwards, like would happen when pushing on a thin plastic bag. Knowing that some result is expected I push onward and find that though I am walking through it, it doesn't really break. It is an odd thing. It is like the membrane simply opens up around me and adjusts the hole to fit my body. Finally once through I find myself in a sort of forest. Each tree seems completely transparent when I look directly at them but show back up when I am not. I easily find that I am not alone in this place and see the one that has been talking to me this entire time.

"So this is what the inside of your head looks like, huh?" I vocalize more an observation than any actual question.

"See, I told you that you would be able to do this. Now let us go find the Elder so that we can discuss your situation," he states in a confident manner, not making any motion of replying to my observation.

With my eyes I can see him start to turn around and start to move, the mental image of him inside of his head doesn't really seem to be doing much other than stand there, almost like he isn't even aware I'm still there. I rise and follow him without any real difficulty. It felt odd that though I kept having to move my focus to stay in his head my body inside of his internal forest seems static. Eventually I get the hint that he's not going to talk to me in here anymore and so I pull back into my own head. Since following him is not really all that hard I take the opportunity to take a look at those around me. Most of the other Thener seem to be lying down in groups of two to four and facing each other. All have completely red fur and none seem to be anywhere near what could be considered a shadow. The most interesting part is that though so many are in groups like they're having a conversation, not a single word is being spoken by any of them.

One of the pulses in particular draws my attention and I feel some sort of compulsion to go investigate. I stop following the one in front of me and instead start moving toward this pulse. It takes my companion a moment to notice I'm no longer following and he quickly walks over to where I am, which isn't hard since I'm walking slowly to try and get a fix on the location of the pulse.

"The Elder is this way," he states, trying to guide me back in the previous direction but not really receiving any real compliance from me.

"If I'm going to be stuck in this body, then I'm going to do what I want to do in this body," I think to myself in such a way that even the three in the innermost recesses of my head could hear.

I eventually find the pulse and it seems to be coming from a tiny little Thener; as tiny a Thener can be. Using the size of the trees as a sort of reference this little thing is probably about the size of a medium sized dog. Currently it is suckling on what must be its mother's teats. Not sure which head her and the Thener next to her are in so I try something new and try and push myself into both of their heads, finding the task rather easy. In the male's head I find no one. Well I find him rather easily but he is standing in that same way that reminds me of a statue that I figure he's currently not home. In the mother's head I find both of them talking. I'm not really sure why I didn't try the child as well as I pull out of the male's head. The mother's head, however, seems rather similar to the one that found me. There is a sort of forest in this place and like before looking directly at the trees makes them fade out until I look elsewhere. Of course the difference between them is hers does not have any leaves nor any real height. It is like we are standing and walking on a plane of glass that is suspended half-way up the tree.

"Hello," she greets before turning to look at me. "Oh! Hello there!"

I'm rather surprised at the change in tone. The fact she greeted me meant that she knew I was in her head but her tone after looking at me indicated surprise, as if she finally noticed I was there.

"I suppose she could have known someone was in her head but until seeing me didn't notice that I was someone she didn't know. In which case does that mean that we cannot know the identity of something in our heads unless we're looking at them?" I ponder inside my own head, watching the yellow fox in the innermost recesses of my head finally seem worn out and taking a nap.

In fact I notice that all three of them seem a lot more sedate at the moment as the pair in her head stand up and move closer to greet me.

"Hello," I respond, feeling the need to return the greeting since I am in their head after all. "I was drawn here by your little one. I apologize if I'm interrupting anything."

"Oh, not at all. We were hoping you would show up sometime in the next few days," the male speaks up with more than a slight tint of enthusiasm to his mental voice.

"Would you be willing of doing the honors of going into our child's mind and perform the blessing?" what I assume is the mother asks.

"Um, sure. Give me a moment," I respond then more or less stop paying too much attention as I start to push into the child's mind.

I'm not really sure in any regard what I should be doing but I enter the child's mind anyway, finding the membrane not as stable as everyone else's seems to be. The world inside the mind seems rather chaotic as well. Things without any definitive structure exist and then randomly decide to change shape or just disappear. While in here I can feel something try and push into my own mind and some instinctual part of myself decides to block it, the sensation itself interesting. The thing trying to push in feels like it has no idea where I am. It pushes against the walls of my mind, gets pushed back by my own will then tries again at a completely different angle and location. Feeling the need to not delay on this experience I set about trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do in here. As I move further into this seemingly unoccupied mind I catch out of the corner of my mind a sharp object suddenly moving in my direction. Figuring that maybe it'll react to the same principle as the trees in the mother I look at the object and immediately see it start to fade but not enough to disappear. So I push against the object with some sort of external force and the blade flies off. The retaliation seems to be to turn off all light in this place but I more or less ignore it, imagining a sort of shield around me so that whatever might attack me will be deflected by the shield instead of hitting me. As I go deep into the mind of the individual I can feel the almost seething frustration and anger of this individual and can feel things bounce off my shield repeatedly.

Eventually I find myself looking at something that seems off. I can't even really figure out how it seems off. Like anything else in this mind it lacks any definition. In fact when I briefly stray from the innermost room in my mind to try and find a comparison I find that it feels the exact same as my own, yet it still feels wrong, somehow. As I try and figure out what is wrong I find myself almost involuntarily moving and placing something over it. After the thing is fully attached to this part of the child's mind it seems to be a lot more manageable to move in here. All of the attacks and malice seems to stop and not sensing anymore danger I let my shield down. I thought that maybe this might have been it but I find myself going even deeper inside of this child's mind. It is odd to move voluntarily but without any control. It is like some part of my mind knows what needs to be done and is doing so without alerting me. In one of the deeper recesses of the mind I find something else that feels wrong to me somehow. Not knowing what else to do I try to put whatever I put on before but feel some sort of compulsion to make it a lot more complex and thicker than before. Once it is in place I find myself pulling back out of the child and then my attention back into the mother's head.

"That should be about it," I guess, still not sure if I even did what I was doing or what I was supposed to do. "How's it look?"

The mother gets the living statue look and then after a moment her eyes move again and she nods at me.

"Thank you," the mother states. "You did a fantastic job."

I feel the Thener that found me pressing into my head and so I pull out of the mother's head and greet this intruder in my own.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Not sure. I did stuff in that little thing's head and then the parents thanked me for it. Really not sure what I did either."

"We need to go see the Elder, now!" he demands and then pulls out.