FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Astral plane was never quite the serene and quiet place mortal minds tended to paint it as. Mystics and healers described it as a place of stillness and peace, where you could meditate for a century or more without being disturbed from your own thoughts, as you drifted around aimlessly, nothing about you but the swirling fog and eddies that made up the sky as far as they were concerned.

Gods, however, saw this as mortal folly. They were so limited in their sight, that when they visited the Astral, at best they might perceive a tiny speck of it, the little mist that was their own destiny, and they'd move with it, so they would see it as still around them. Perspective, however, was something Gods had in spades, and so, to them, the Astral was not still or silent in any way.

No, the Astral was a place of movement and song. The Mists of Time, a representation of Destiny and Fate, played in tendrils, rubbing against each other as they were blown about on the Tides, the forces that moved them. Sometimes, the Tides were made by Gods, pushing and prodding at them to put them into the shapes that God desired at that moment, that their champions or worlds might rise, while others fell.

Sometimes, the Tides were random, made by the movements of the Mists themselves, and throughout all of this, the Tides sang to the ears of the Gods, a heavenly music that had no tempo or pace, but simply was. Each God heard their song, and each tried to spread it far and wide, even as others did the same, and sometimes a mortal might add a note or two, or become Divine themselves, and sing a new melody.

Justin had been one of those. He'd once, long ago, been something of a mortal, if a higher level one than most. He'd felt the Astral, and known at least something of its movements, before, a stray thought of his grabbed one of the Tides, and used it to pull himself upwards and out of the Mists, and into this realm, where his every thought might make a world, and command the heavens.

To those beneath him, it was eons before he had control of his power. To himself, it was the work of moments, as Time became something that happened to other people, and the other Gods welcomed him...as much as they acknowledged him at all, amongst their number, and allowed him to sing whatever tune he wanted into existence, his power soon giving birth to dozens of worlds.

Over time, he'd grown used to himself, grown into his power, and become simply another God. Not a new one, but not an Elder, simply one of many, and while that irked him somewhat, he was content enough to add his voice to the melody of existence, and watch over those worlds he made, enjoying himself sometimes by tormenting the mortals, after allowing them to build to great heights.

Still, it was a lonely existence, to be what he was. The other Gods were in pantheons, groups, and even families, but he'd ascended alone, and so he had no place in their structure, and while a few of the mortals he raised had shown godly aptitudes, most of those had wanted to usurp his power, not join with it, and so he'd been forced to strike them down, lest they start a war in heaven, something that was never fun.

Not that he didn't have fun striking them down. It wasn't too hard most of the time. Simply appear in the heavens, and bring his foot down on the situation. Literally. There really was no feeling like grinding his foot down into a city that held a heathen temple, and rolling his sole over it, letting the debris tickle at his skin, before he lifted it away and then left behind naught but a hole.

That was only a momentary pleasure, however, and soon he was back in his home on the Astral plane, bored. He'd try to mingle with some of the other Gods, but they'd shoo him off like a child, and even trying to meet some of the newbies was a problem, as more often than not they'd reject anyone getting close for the first eon or so, and by then they'd find a place in a pantheon, something he'd never gotten into at that age because he'd wanted his independence then.

Sighing, he blew on a nearby tendril of Mist, and decided, in that moment, to make himself a world that would spawn a God like himself. It would take some doing, of course, but he had time, and a project to work on, one ending with someone to talk to, was a good use of his time, and so he set about making the conditions just right, altering Fate and Destiny until it was where he needed to be.

The process, to those on the world below, took millennia. In that time, empires rose and fell, great nations took up leadership of the world, and the church preached the gospel of a Great Gryphon in the sky that had made them, and they offered to him snack foods and alcohol, that they might sait his hungers for parties in the sky, something that some might find odd, but these people had lived with it since the beginning, and so to them it was normal.

Soon, on the world came a life, a soul that had that Spark of the Divine in it. A soul that might one day give birth to a God, and Justin, who had been working at this hard, almost jumped in glee, clapping his hands together like a schoolgirl, before shoving that urge aside and growing closer to the world, his perception of it slowing down, so that soon years passed slow enough for him to watch this soul grow, from a child, to a teen, to an adult, before he finally entered into it's frame of reference.

---

Incarnating was an experience as much as apotheosis was. To feel the chains of flesh grow around yourself, a small bit of your power pressed into the world, like pushing up from beneath the sand and creating a small impression of your hand in the desert. It felt interesting and amazing, both somehow liberating, as he was free of all the noise of the Astral, and yet limiting at the same time, as he was no longer aware of all the things such had to offer.

Not that he was powerless here. While he might project an aura of being mortal, this was still his world, and so he made a place for himself there. A home, some funds to make himself comfortable, a distant family, to whom he had no connections, and thus, would not be in his way, and then, a subtle nudge of his history into that of the one containing the Spark, such that they believed he'd always been a part of their life.

He tingled as the Tides changed around him, Fate warping to his desire, and soon he had a history with this one...with Axel. To the axolotl, the gryphon had been his friend since childhood, the two having grown up together, as far as he knew. Playing in a nearby playground, building things in sandboxes only to smash them underfoot with a shared boyhood giggle before going home.

In school, the two had been inseparable, always found beside each other, sharing food and playing the same games, always in the same class, and with maybe one or two other friends hanging around the outside of their two person circle. They would find schooling challenging, but never more than that, nothing to hold them back, or keep them from playing at the end of each day and enjoying themselves.

Their teens would be spent doing almost nothing beyond that, as their other friends drifted away, and the two of them spent more and more time together, exploring the city they lived in, and even spending time in some out of the way places, like watching the sunset over the horizon from atop the city's large bell tower, while they enjoyed a bit of ice cream, just watching the painted sky as it changed.

When they graduated, they moved out; Axel to his home, and Justin to his, neither letting themselves drift apart, but keeping a bit of distance, as they each found jobs, but never more friends beyond each other, just as Justin liked it. The last few years had been spent working, and enjoying each other's company in alternating patterns, until the previous week, when Axel and Justin had both found themselves between jobs.

---

Justin, as he popped into being in his home, smiled. His history was what he wanted it to be, and he looked out the window to find Axel playing on his phone, just scrolling through the news. They weren't worried, mind, no matter what it said, or that they'd lost their jobs, after all, they'd bounce back. Or at least, that was probably how Axel thought, but Justin was grinning on the sides of his beak as he walked out his door.

"So, what's this all about, Bird Breath?" asked Axel, the gills on the side of his face wafting a little as he pressed the close button on the app he'd been looking at.

"Heh, does it have to be about something?" asked the gryphon, trying to put on his best, innocent face, and the axolotl just smirked at him, and play-smacked him on the back of his head.

"When you invite me out somewhere, rather than hanging out at home lately? Yes, yes it does have to be about something," responded the salamander, returning the gesture as the two turned to walk down the street. Around them, the crowds seemed to part, like the two were laying a path which someone walks on, which the tide of people were breaking; something Justin noticed right away, even if Axel didn't.

After all, to Axel, they'd always done this for the two of them, always made way, as if in deference. He'd never known anything different, and so he didn't find it unusual. The gryphon knew it for what it was, however, with their divine auras leaking through, making people steer clear of them; some even nodding their heads in small bows their way, showing the proper respect to higher beings.

As they walked, Justin made a few hand motions; his power, limited as it was in this body, began flowing into the world, and altering the fates of a few of those before them. To those around them, the fates were simply always that, and those hit with his power could do little about it as they were reduced in size, their bodies shrinking down, just as the pair of godlings came upon them.

Axel, caught up in the flow of power himself, only giggled, as he stepped forward, nearly crushing a pair of foxes that scrambled out of the way of his foot just in time, only to suddenly pivot on the spot, and bring his heel down on them with a crunch that made his head gills shake with lust, as his tongue lolled out of his mouth, enjoying the feeling of power as he lifted his foot off to reveal the gore beneath it.

Justin, almost purring, enjoying the way his brother was having fun like this, decided to join in. Another wriggle of his fingers, and a falcon person, who'd been flying above the city, was suddenly sailing around at head level; his tiny body dodging amid the sea of faces, until a sudden gust of wind blew him right into the yawning beak of the gryphon, who tried to make it look like an accident, even as his tongue angled perfectly to catch him.

The long, slimy member slurped around the bird, who tried to escape the beak of the gryphon, but found the teeth snapping shut around him, closing with a crack on his extended wing, as a cry of pain and terror echoed from Justin's closed mouth. Not one to be rude, of course, Justin slurped the severed wing back into his beak, before chewing his food while keeping it closed, his head rattling with the death cries of the avian inside.

Axel, who was beside him was looking at him, and then giggling like a little kid as he swallowed, his eyes following the bulge down to his belly, even as the axolotl's own stomach gave out a growl, the pair looking down at it, and then laughing as Justin nodded his head towards a nearby sandwich shop, where they could get him something more normal to eat, and discuss what he called him out for.

The walk to it was a block or so, for the pair. For the people of the city, it was a grave event, however. Now, Axel's own power, a kind of infant-level power, though it was oblivious to him, leaked out around him, and soon, the pair of them were stepping on cars, with Axel stopping to stomp up and down on a few that refused to crush under his weight, enjoying every second of the crunch under his bare feet as he made them flat.

Justin laughed at that, with his gold-like sandals allowing him to spread his destruction out a bit. He was enjoying the sight of a few people at his feet, reduced to less than inches tall, trying to scamper away. He even let a few of them go sometimes, allowing them to escape for a brief moment, just as his foot came down on those behind them. This was just allowing them to be in that horrible moment where the crack of his sandaled foot hitting the pavement was mixed with the crunch of tiny bodies beneath his gold-like sandal sole.

He saw more than one fall down at the side of his foot, their bodies laying there, tossed down by the impact and unable to rise. This was happening so fast for the small people, even as a small pool of blood and other such fluids began to emerge from beneath his foot. The sight of the remains was making him chuckle, even as he lifted his heel again, and brought it down on the survivors too, relishing in the sight of their eyes going wide, before they were lost beneath him.

The two of them laid a path of destruction behind them that was wide and long, and by the time they made it to the shop, the streets, once bustling, were almost empty, leaving the two to enter the shop alone; the few people in it were then quickly moving away from them, not knowing what was happening, but knowing they needed to stay far away from the pair, who walked up to the tiger at the counter.

Kane, which Justin thought his name was, is one who didn't seem familiar to the gryphon at first, though Axel knew him better than the gryphon did. The two of them had hung out a few times when they were younger, whenever there'd been time away from the gryphon. Justin didn't mind; he found the idea of Axel knowing a mortal or two amusing. After all, that's how a God tended to find their high priests or the like, amidst the usual refuse that populated the world.

The tiger, who was working at the shop today, was a bit nervous as the two came up to the counter, and Axel felt...odd. He'd been...he'd done...his head felt funny. He knew what they'd been doing up and down the street to get here, but something about it had felt so...so right, that he hadn't questioned it at the time. But here, now removed from that heavy power, he wondered why he'd done all that, and why it had felt so good.

That wasn't to say he regretted doing it. Heck, he was almost salivating at the idea of doing it again, as he looked over the guests, and then back at Kane; he absently started to point at the things he wanted added to his meal, only to feel a sudden urge overtake him, and a tingling feeling in his body. Like, he could act on the urge, and no one would notice; something he just had to try.

Glancing back at those against the far wall, he quickly picked on someone, just one, to try his power out on, and with a smirk, he made a finger gun motion at the guy, who suddenly vanished from beside the lioness he'd been pressed up against, his girlfriend probably. The moment he was gone, she forgot him, and even everyone forgot him from existence, as she hugged herself closer against the wall, even as Axel turned back to Kane.

Another finger gun, this time with a pop noise from his lips, and as Kane opened up the bread to start adding stuff to it, the human reappeared, afraid, confused, naked, and most of all, disoriented, his head lolling back as he tried to focus his thoughts, even as the tiger seemed oblivious to him being on the sandwich he was making, instead reaching forward and grabbing the stuff Axel had asked for.

Suppressing a giggle, Axel watched as the tiny guy found himself covered; first by a slice of meat that he dug himself out from under, and then by cheese, lettuce, tomato, all of it coming so fast that he couldn't get out from under it, until finally, the human was lost, just a lump in the middle of the sandwich, as Kane closed the top bun onto it, pressing it down, and then lifting up a knife, offering to cut it in half, right where the human was trapped.

Axel briefly considered doing that, but then thought better of it, shaking his head, and feeling his gills shudder as he watched Kane wrap up his sandwich, and then drop it into a bag for Axel to take; the axolotl dropping a few bills on the counter, and then leaving the shop with Justin, staring at his lunch, and somehow... was feeling the human squirming around inside, feeling every panicked motion, and all of it making him salivate more.

---

The jingling bell of the door echoed, because the streets were almost deserted. There were a few people and cars here and there, some looking down at the remains of their walk, but for the most part, people had started to avoid this area. Had they always done this? It felt...odd to Axel, who held a hand against his head; his mouth opening and closing a few times as he tried to focus, but found his mind wanting more.

Without Justin to guide him, he probably would have stumbled around the city for hours, in his fugue state. As it was, they made it back to Justin's house in a few minutes, with no more people caught under them. Instead, the only person nearby he could feel being present was the human in his lunch, who was just panting now, having exhausted himself, and was simply out of energy to move with.

Even there, though, he sensed something. The human did. The axolotl didn't need any 'feelings' to tell him something was off about Justin's place as they got closer. It literally was humming with power in his vision, almost seeming to dance, like there were two versions of the home: one slightly more 'real' than the other, and slightly offset and slowly moving around atop the less real one.

"Uh...dude, what did you spike my drink with last night?" he asked, surely this was some kind of dream now. His feeling of being more awake than he'd ever been in his life had to be some kind of drug-fueled delusion as he laid on the floor of the gryphon's home after a wild night of partying. That was the only explanation that made sense to the salamander being, whose mouth was opening and closing with every breath he took in a deliberate way, trying to still his soul.

"Heh, me? I didn't do anything last night. I'm just here to be around you, as you 'wake up'," said the bird, sticking out his tongue in a mocking manner between his beak, and then opening the door to his home. The door led...not inside the house, but outside. Outside everything. The world, the heavens, the sky, it led to somewhere so far beyond that it was incomprehensible to the axolotl, who felt like he should turn around, and run home.

But that part of him slipped away. The part of him that was a piece of this world, a mortal. It was anchored here, and it was being pulled back down, as the rest of him slowly let Justin guide him forward some more, his hand clenching on the handle of his lunch bag, as he was led over the precipice, and into the Astral, his eyes closing, even as all his other senses felt like they exploded outward.

Instantly, he was 'aware' of things. He knew things about the world, about the stars, about everything. He could literally feel the heavens move, and the ebb and flow of the Tides that moved them. This was what it felt like to be a God, a thought from the gryphon told him: one that wormed its way into his own mind, and the axolotl let it come, his face breaking out into a smile, as he walked forward, and heard the door shut behind him.

Oddly, as he walked, his head turned, and he saw...well, it was Justin's home, but it was so much more than that. The nightstand, still dented from where they'd smacked it a few years ago. The door to the laundry room downstairs, with a hole in the corner from where, even with the two of them, he dropped the washing machine on it, nearly breaking Justin's foot in the process.

And yet, now looking at them, other memories intruded on his mind. The nightstand had been damaged a few eons ago, when a sun exploded at the wrong time, upsetting the balance of a universe. The door to the basement? Some kind of devil thing had risen up on a world, and tried to overthrow the heavens, tunneling through in that spot, forcing Justin to kick it in the face.

All those memories conflicted, and added together, as the pair slowly walked through the home, Axel feeling numb to it all as his mind turned over everything, watching as the gryphon he'd known all his life was laid bare: no longer a thing of fur, flesh, and feathers, but instead of sound and light, of elements so base that reality itself stood on them, and he barely felt the weight of it.

Settling down into the chair, the axolotl lifted his hand, and was shocked to find something in his grip, something that felt like it was made of air. Looking at it, he took what felt like hours to remember; he'd bought something from Kane, and he set it down on the table, just staring at the bagged lunch, the plastic, almost clear, back, crinkling as it settled on the wooden table.

And then he waved a hand, stretching out with his new sense of self. The table, it stayed, but the bag and it contents seemed to fall apart, whole of it dissolving into the mists of the Astral plane, and the axolotl looked at the empty spot where it had been, disappointed, only to then wave his hand back, and without a sound, some of the mist returned, a confused human stuck half in and half out of his meal, looking around.

Axel could feel his mind, his soul, his being, as it existed. He could see through his eyes, beyond the way he saw them: as huge beings made of light and fire. To the human, they were as they should have been; Gods, and the axolotl just revelled in that sight, enjoying the way his form roiled and moved with thunder at his smallest gesture, only to reach forward finally, and take hold of his meal.

He felt the human's fear start to overtake him; Axel felt him try and pull himself free of the food item that held him, and he was found wanting, as the hands of the axolotl held him firmly, and he yawned open his jaws. Those small teeth, barely visible over his lips in reality, suddenly filling the human's mind with terror so big enough that his heart would have stopped right then, had it been beating at all....

...because this human was no longer as he had been. Unmade, and then remade by Axel's power, he was now more of a soul, bound to the flesh that had once been his. He feared, however, the draw of the axolotl's maw, and he screamed, as he was stuffed inside, along with the whole of the sandwich, and was swallowed in one quick motion, Axel's neck barely bulging around it.

The feeling of a soul inside him, a life, an existence within, was enough to send a shiver down Axel's spine again, and he had to hold himself back from simply unmaking the food to remake it again. But that would have been an act without meaning, and instead he traced the path of the sandwich down into his body with his finger, and felt it fall into his stomach without a sound.

Inside, a rolling oven of light greeted the human, a divine equivalent of digestion taking him, and tearing from him those elements that had been his flesh, leaving him instead as naught but a soul. It felt...painful was a word, and it was insufficient, and in error. This was like being torn apart, one piece at a time, one atom stripped away, until nothing remained but a core of himself.

And yet, it was freeing too, in a way. It was the liberation of the spirit from the base, and he floated inside the center of Axel's being for what felt like an eon to him, as the rolling flame at the center took in what had been his body, and then finally reached a tendril of flame up, and wrapped itself around his spirit, dragging it down into that furnace as well, to be used for what it could provide to the godly axolotl.

The fire burned him in ways beyond description, the tongues of spiritual power licking at his form, dragging away bits of it, reducing him in soul as it had in flesh. And yet, he had no way to simply end, no way to die from this, instead enduring it as Axel's body tore from it the flame of its own soul, and added that kindling to his power, before passing him down into the rest of his form.

Here, the element that was his consciousness felt the flesh of a God as they might describe it. The soft, velvet walls, digging into him, tiny villi dragging themselves along him, as if scrapping at him, trying to get him to give up anything he'd held back, and he screamed for all he was worth into them, fought back with all the power he had, as a mortal, even though he was against a being Divine.

And for all that fighting, it availed to him very little, beyond the axolotl burping a little, while poking at his belly, enjoying the way it tickled inside him, as the human worked his way through his intestines, and then farther, in moments going from a whole complete soul, to nothing but tattered remains, barely able to hold a thought, save the eternal suffering within itself, barely able to conceive of anything else.

When he felt a need within himself, the axolotl didn't say anything, instead just rising from his place, and walking through the home of the gryphon...of the God that dwelt here. He felt the worlds under his feet, their adulation, their horror, their pain. They felt him not as more than spiritual pressure, a presence in their lives, one he could use to snuff them out in a moment if he wanted too.

He ignored that feeling, though, and ignored all of it, as he made his way to Justin's bathroom, and closed the door, going to lock it...only to just figure "why?", before sitting down on the toilet. Here, he grunted, he pushed, and soon, he felt something exit his body, and drop into the bowl beneath him, not into water, but into...something else, and when he rose, he looked on something that had once been a human, now nothing but a lump of slowly dying embers, what had once been a soul, consumed by him.

Axel stared at it, stared at his stomach, and then just smiled, as he closed the lid, and then left the bathroom. He said nothing to Justin, instead going out of the door of the home. He felt his being, his essence, returning to his body, but feeling like he was slipping on a suit, rather than being born again. No, he was no longer contained wholly in this fleshy form, and as he walked back to his home, to dream of things to come, he found himself crushing a few more lives beneath his soles as he went.

He would get home, disappointed to find it was not as Justin's had been... He was initially thinking he should make one like that someday, but then he was shaking his head. That day would come. He knew, but today, he had other plans, as he waved a hand, and suddenly, Kane stood at his feet, the tiger confused, as he was only an inch or so tall, as the axolotl stared down at him, his gills rattling around his head, as he thought of all the fun he would have.

Oh, the fun he'll have, as he's a Godly Axolotl. All thanks to his brother.