FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

She came aware more quickly this time, the soft sounds in the room with her pulling her into awareness. She needed to know on an instinctive level what was going on around her and the presence of someone or thing in the room with her drove her exhausted mind to alertness before she was ready.

Her head still ached, but truthfully everything felt like it ached just now. Well maybe not that tail she had. She felt cleaner, the heavy weight of blood and gore seemed to be gone. She breathed deeply once before opening her eyes, while muted she could still smell the blood.

The first thing she saw was the ceiling and it was an odd one. It took her a moment to puzzle out that it was covered in tiny pieces of mirror. They looked like they had been glued to something, wood maybe. None were large enough to see anything or arranged in a way to help her to look about. Her eyes moved on after the briefest moment taking the strange ceiling in.

Her eyes moved on, the walls were a patchwork of corrugated metal, cardboard and plywood. It was held together with nuts, bolts and what looked like leather ties in some places. Plastic sheeting draped over the walls in one corner that had what looked like a crude operating table. The floor beneath the table was a mess of what looked like watery gore and blood. It wasn't enclosed and she could only guess the plastic sheeting was about easy clean up more than anything. There were what looked to be haphazardly stacked boxes in different places, supplies visible here and there.

Movement in one of the doorways drew her attention. Doorway might be stretching it a bit as there didn't seem to be a door, the opening more a place where someone simply hadn't patched together walling. Still it framed a figure standing in the opening.

Non humans were rare, only two races had official contact made with them and only 3 more were known and recognized as sapient. This one was a Canis Ferox Rectus or Ferox for short. The mostly canine like humanoids were the most technically advanced species that humans had made contact with, with their tech being on par with earth around world war one. They lacked somethings humanity had had during the time period but over all were well on the way to global industrialization.

It was undoubtedly a he as he wore only a loose fitting long vest or maybe a sleeveless long coat of some kind. It had a lot of pockets and was heavily stained but still clearly a light tan under it all. The almost nakedness was as shocking as the fact he wasn't human though she wasn't sure why. He was a dirty grey color with patches of brown and white here and there. There was some kind of scar on his forehead, almost looking like a rune or glyph. His eyes were a soft brown and looked tired. Not the tiredness of physical exhaustion but the tired of someone who had been worn down in life, like their soul had been worn thin by life's trials. He looked ragged physically as well. His coat was patchy in some places. One leg ended at the knee, and one ear was badly notched. He was supporting himself with a crutch.

His voice was soft and rather soothing. "Well now I didn't expect you to wake up until tomorrow at the soonest. You showed all the signs of extreme exhaustion. Your wound while minor didn't help any." He paused and rubbed his muzzle. "Are you thirsty?"

Her tail slipped into the open and flicked ascent. She understood him it was odd because while she understood the words they were not a language she thought she knew. They were at a guess one of the native languages of the Ferox. Much like humans they had more than one language, though they all sounded the same to most humans. It sounded more guttural and primal to her.

He hobbled over and sat next to her, on a wooden box. Taking a pitcher that was near the spot she lay, he poured water into a wide but shallow bowl. Both bowl and pitcher looked old ,worn and chipped, made of enameled metal of some kind. Without thinking she leaned in and began to drink the water with eager laps of her tongue. The water tasted odd but she found she couldn't get it down fast enough. She felt parched and realized she had not been given the normal food and water that people exiting a regeneration tank would get. Her stomach gurgled in a bid to get her to take in more than water.

She finished up the water, and looked up at him. "More," as an after thought she added, "Please." Her voice was raspy, her throat sore. She noted with mild surprise she spoke to the Ferox in the same language that he had and that words came easily.

He shook his head, "Not yet young lady. Let that settle some, there is enough clean up to do. Lets not add regurgitated water to the mess. My name is Glade, whats yours?"

Such a simple question and yet when she tried to answer she gripped her head, whining softly in agony. The more she tried to find that simple piece of information the more it hurt. She racked her brain trying to recall her name and it felt like her brain was on the fire.

She heard him as if from down a long tunnel the man, saying, "It's okay! It's okay! Tell me what's wrong!"

She shook her head. She needed to still her mind, to get it off this subject. She looked up and focused on his eyes. They held worry in them now as well as that look that so many people who had seen too much wore. The eye on one side was slightly cloudy, probably a cataract forming. His round pupils were small due to the well lit room. She sighed the pain in her head fading as she stopped trying to recall her name. Stopped mentally poking at what was causing such pain.

She got out somewhat brokenly, "No name. Name, bad,". She closed her eyes, focusing on breathing for a moment, then asked, "Head Injury?"

Glade answered her softly, "I didn't see anything but some small cuts. Let me look again." She felt his hands on her head, his rough finger pads moving around her skull. There were tender spots but nothing worse that she felt. "These small cuts might be incisions, it's hard to say. With all the strange new devices humans have brought us, it might be the result of something stolen or simply thrown out by them. Or worse something they sold us." His voice sounded sad.

She looked at him thoughtfully, "Sold? Are they not limited to selling only things you could produce?"

Glade chuckled bitterly, "Ah, well that is what they say. But if one is willing to offer enough they twist those words until only a keeper of laws could find the original meaning. They have at least stayed firm on selling their weapons. Our own do quite enough harm all on their own."

She nodded, "I see." She paused for a moment and thought carefully, "Call me," she paused. What to call herself? A word popped up in her mind, and fit what little she could recall clearly, "Fury."

Glade nodded, "Vary well. As I am not death I will not ask if you are hungry. He took something down from a cobbled together table near her. He unwrapped a piece of meat, unidentifiable to her and offered it to her. "It's not much Fury but it's all I have to offer right now."

The piece was rather small and her mouth watered as she got a good whiff of it. It smelled divine. "You have eaten already?"

"Yes of course," he answered her quickly. Looking at him something in the way he held his ears and tail made her think he wasn't being honest with her. She took the piece of meat and tore it in half and offered it to him, "Humer me and eat with me anyways."

He shook his head, "No. You need to eat. You're so thin as to be unhealthy already."

She sighed and eyed him, "You're not exactly looking well fed yourself. Eat." She said as if ordering a new recruit to do something.

She watched Glade twitch at her tone and start to reach for the food simply from the reflexive action of following an order. But he did not take the meat she offered, his hand pulling back. "Please honor the wishes of your healer young lady."

She paused the way he had worded his request sounding formal. Like someone who was used to dealing with people who could order him around. She sighed and asked, "You're going to refuse to eat some of this no matter what I say aren't you?"

Glade flicked his tail in ascent. Fury sighed and started eating, not taking pleasure in leaving the old guy hungry but not having the will just now to argue it. The meat was unseasoned but flavorful. It was gone faster than she would have wished and she still felt hungry. She sighed but accepted that hunger was going to be a thing for now. "How about water? That's not in short supply is it?"

Glade shook his head and filled the bowl again, though this time she took it and drank more sedately. She emptied the bowl a third time before feeling like her thirst was under control.

Glade took the bowl and put it back on the table next to her bed and stood back up. "Rest. You're still shaky with fatigue. I'll bring more to eat in the morning."

She watched him work to clean. Part of her wanted to get up and help him but moving even a little was difficult and she knew she needed to rest. She vaguely recalled someone saying it wasn't sandbagging if you really did need the rest. She fell asleep without even being aware she was doing so.

When she came awake the next time the room was no longer lit by natural light. A small candle burned nearby. She felt a pressure that told her she needed to piss. Sitting up took effort but she managed it before looking about. No one was in the room with her, and the room looked about as clean as it could get now.

She was still tired but it was no longer a bone deep thing and much of the soreness was gone. She got up off what turned out to be less bed and more pallet. She didn't feel wobbly anymore at least and that was a blessing. She followed her nose to the restroom such as it was. There was no door but it was behind a turn of a corner providing some privacy or so she guessed.

Everything she had seen of the place radiated crippling poverty, carefully managed scrounged resources. Yet she had met a man who seemed like a doctor. Doctors were generally well paid, so why was he living in such conditions?

She pushed the unknown aside and looked at the bucket with distaste. Still it was better than a hole in the ground, if not by much. She went to piss and paused as she reached for a penis she didn't have. She wondered in confusion about that as she squatted and took care of the pressure in her bladder.

She also noticed for the first time she had fur while she was doing so. This wasn't to say she hadn't been aware of it exactly so much that it had not registered as strange as it did now. Looking at her hand she noted the slightly thick fingertips, where her claws retracted too. The thick pads of skin on her hands and fingers were where contact would most frequently be made with things.

Once done with the restroom she went looking for a decent sized mirror. There was one of a sort in the area of what looked to be a makeshift operating table. She took some real time to look herself over wondering how she didn't know what she even looked like.

She was white, though there were still traces in her fur of blood here and there. Her nose was pinkish white, moist and twitching as she seemed constantly to pick up new scents. Her eyes were a bright azure blue and her skin where it showed whitish pink. Though she didn't have boobs to speak of, more in the way of bee stings, she had two sets, with nipples peeking out of the fur ever so slightly. Her tail lazily moving of its own accord behind her was long enough she could touch the ground with it when she made the effort. Her face had sharp features and tall alert ears. The feminine fold of flesh between her legs seemed a bit larger than average to her eyes. Overall she thought the white with such bright blue eyes gave her a striking look.

The person she saw in the mirror did not look familiar and looked out right alien to her. Her head ached as she tried to puzzle that out, but it never got really bad. She spent a lot of time in front of the mirror looking at herself from different angles trying to find an angle that she could call 'her'. She couldn't find any, her form felt alien and strange to her, yet she moved with grace in front of the mirror. If this wasn't her than what was?

She eventually gave up and went back to her pallet. It wasn't until she was laying down that it occurred to her she had been running around naked and thought nothing of it. Glade had also been for all practical purposes naked as well. Why didn't that bother her? Why did she think it should have?

She turned what she could remember of Glade over in her mind. He might have had a ragged look to him but he had smelled fine. Not good or bad. Then she spent time pondering why his scent mattered. She fell asleep wondering that and other things. She did not remember life being so confusing but then there was a lot she couldn't remember.

She woke in the early morning, light was just beginning to filter in here and there. She could hear and smell Glade moving around somewhere nearby. She sat up and felt a lot better than she had the day before. Her muscles were stiff but not too stiff, she should loosen up moving around.

Glade bustled in while she was still sitting on her pallet. "Oh your awake. How are you feeling this morning?"

She considered for a moment, "Hungry, thirsty and stiff. My head aches just a little. Like I was wearing a hat just a little too small."

An ear flicked on Glade's head, "Interesting. I was going to go to market and get a little food, would you like to come with me? If you do, we could go down to the stream and get you better washed off. You were," he paused for a moment clearly choosing his words clearly, "A mess when I found you. You're still not as clean of it as you should be. Feel up to walking for maybe a handspan of time?"

She noted that he didn't ask how she came to be covered in blood and more. She found that interesting even if she wasn't sure why. "Sure."

She stood and followed him. He seemed content to go out in nothing more than the strange coat like vest he wore. The fact that she was naked as the day she had been born also didn't seem to be an issue, so she followed him out the front of his place.

She took a moment to remember that a handspan of time was about an hour. She wasn't sure though how she knew that or, that it was based on a measurement on a standard sundial.

She paused with Glade as he stopped by a place only a few long strides away from his, the two structures sharing a wall. He stuck his head in and said softy, "Fireborn, would you watch my place while I am away. I will be picking up some more herbs for your mother while I am out."

A moment later a young man with golden toned pelt with black spots stepped out, naked as she was. "Sure thing Glade." He looked past Glade to see her and seemed to smile, "Oh who's this?"

She saw his nose working busily and realized he was getting her scent, "She the one you said you found on the street? She sure smells amazing!" He watched her with as much interest as he sniffed the air to get her scent.

She felt her ears twitch in embarrassment, more so when she realized that some of his penis, bright fleshy pink against a dark patch of fur, had slid from his sheath. She could smell his growing arousal as well as see it. Her ears twitched more when she got his smell and also found it handsome if on the young side. She thought it an odd way to describe a scent but that was the best way she could think of doing so. She noticed that he was still swelling, more and more leaving his sheath and that it was hard to look away.

The youths scent also sent a flutter into her lower belly and her ears twitched all the worse. Glade laughed watching the two of them, "There will be time for that later you two. If I'm to be back before you leave for work Fireborn we need to get going now."

Glade headed off still chuckling and she hurried to follow. As she caught up to him she noticed something. She was shorter than any of the Ferox on the street, if one could call the muddy pathway a street, by a recognizable margin. For some reason she found that mildly off putting. She was sure she was used to looking down at the top most people's heads.

Glade looked at her from the side of his eye and commented, "You seemed flustered by the complements and interest the boy showed you."

She flipped her tail in a non committal way, not sure why she had been surprised by his compliments and arousal, or for that matter her own reactions to the young man. She frowned suddenly, and asked, "How old am I?"

Glade looked at her more directly and hmmed for a moment. "Well, you're past puberty I can tell that by scent. Your body shape says you haven't quite filled all the way out yet, or at least your shoulders are a bit more sloped than most fully grown adults have. I would put you at around 14 to 16 at a guess." Looking back to where he was placing his foot and crutch he went on, "Old enough to be counted an adult. Your clearly having memory issues, is there anyone you can recall that you should be looking to get back to?"

She walked along in silence, her head hurting as she dug around for someone's name, appearance or scent. Nothing came to mind. Not a person, place or thing that said home. "No." She paused, "Is that odd?" She asked uncertainly.

Glade's tail flicked a yes out as he looked off into the distance. "Personal bonds are what tie us to family. It takes quite the head injury to lose all recall of them. You seem far more functional than most who have suffered that level of injury."

They walked a ways to a fast flowing stream, the water surprisingly clear. She still eyed it dubiously, given the lack of sewers in the area. "It's clean enough to wash in?" She asked. Even as she did so, she could smell that the water was clean, or at least as clean as any stream with fish and plants in it would be.

Glade looked at her in surprise, "Yes. Why wouldn't it be?"

Fury frowned and her tail flicked in confusion. "I don't know? But for some reason I expected it to be filthy with waste."

She stepped into the fast moving water and found it was chilly but not unbearably so. Glade took his vest off as well and joined her wading in more carefully than she had. He found a rock at about knee deep and sat down on it and began to scrub himself with wet sand. She watched a moment before doing the same. What she wouldn't give for a decent body wash and luffa she thought.

They spent enough time to be chilled but not badly so cleaning. Glade had her come over and scrubbed a few spots on her and batted her hand away from her side when she got too close to her stitches. Something that she had barely noticed being there until now. Glade shook his head and said, "The sutures aren't up to any rough treatment. I'm afraid the material I use while sanitary isn't as sturdy as the preferred stuff, thankfully the wound is shallow."

It brought to mind a question she had asked herself in the night. "Why are you making so little money? You seem competent as a healer."

Glade froze for a moment, clearly shocked then shook his head and went back to getting the last of the blood out of her fur. "I guess I should have seen that coming. Your memory is full of some odd holes. Few have respect for or willingness to be treated by someone who bears a deserter's brand."

She looked more closely at the mark on his head and asked, "Why did you desert?"

He kept scrubbing for long moments before replying softly, "The simple answer is I became a drunk, went to spend a night drinking and didn't sober up for 8 days. Took that long for them to find me and get me sober. I didn't even know how long i had been until someone told me. I had been missed after a while, and the unit I was assigned to had moved on. Once it was determined my own actions lead to my being left behind I was branded a deserter." She could hear in his voice that there was more to it but he didn't sound like he wanted to speak of it.

She looked at him wet and noted some of his raggedness were scars. She wondered what all he had seen and done, over what if she had to guess, had so far been a long life but did not ask. She let the silence stand for a time, before asking, "So what could I do to earn my keep at the least?"

His tail tip flicked in an uncertain manner. "I don't know given the condition you showed up in I am guessing you know how to fight. Can you tell me what other skills you have?"

She flicked her tail in the negative, "I don't know." Her tail moved uncertainly behind her, "I can remember nothing from before waking up in," she broke off and looked at him uncertainly. "Should I tell you what happened? Something tells me knowing could bring you trouble sometime down the road."

He thought over it for a short time not making a choice in haste. "Yes but let's leave that for when we are back at my home. Given your strange memory gaps it might be best to talk where no one might eavesdrop easily." He stopped scrubbing, "I think you are as clean as we can get you, your scent is going to carry the smell of blood for a few days but thankfully it will be faint enough after this bath most won't notice it."

She looked down at herself and thought she was as clean as if she had taken a hot shower with the best body washes and other bath aids she might have asked for. "Well I feel clean, so I'm good to go."

She offered him a hand and helped him stand, "So Glade what's next?"

"We go to the open market located not far from here. It's not a fancy one like they have up near the gates to the human city but it will have what we need." He said setting off after a tail flick of appreciation for the help.

She followed wondering what the market would be like and wishing she had money to spend.