FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It seemed like the most logical wish to make at the time. Back then, all those millions of years ago, people lived only to be 25 or so before they got claimed by dinos or infection. So, the most logical request to make when you approach a meteorite which spawns a magical being manifesting itself from fire and smoke? "I want to live longer."

As a result of his wish, he had watched his wife and children grow old and die as he remained young, and worshipped as a prophet, a messiah, some sort of being with a connection with divinity. And then he would watch those followers grow old and die too.

And every single time he watched them breathe their last-watching as that vital force, that essence escape their body, it bothered him. Where did that force go exactly? Where did it come from?

After watching life leave their husk so many times, he had become numb to taking wives and breeding like his instincts told him-after all, instincts became meaningless when you simply could not die.

And so here he was 10 million years later in the year 2050. He had seen the rise and fall of many civilizations. Greece. Rome. Egypt. Great Britain. America. And now here they were on the cusp of another changing of hands.

As his feet had taken him all over the world, he found there was little to pique his interest on the planet itself. Sure, the planet was ever-changing, but it was not the planet itself that kept him moving-but people's relationship with the planet, with the times, with life itself that forced him to live one more day at a time.

He stood here among the masses alongside the ocean shoreline, gathered there during a full moon close to the winter solstice. A sea of people in all sorts of apparel with various idols of the pantheon of the modern day embedded onto their garments had gathered near the ocean for the annually orchestrated ritual, which they had held every year for the past few decades.

Everyone was abuzz with excitement, whispering in odd prayers, speaking of deeds of these otherworldly entities that seemed to have spawned in the hundreds. Throughout the centuries, they had evolved, but nowadays, there was an odd blend of reverence that they were referred to with an everyday tone - while the otherworldly beings had always been integrated into everyday life for as long as he could remember, this was the first time that he remembered the followers predominantly treating them with an equal amount of playful irreverence - as if a joke.

But for a joke, they would get into extremely heated debates and arguments -

especially over the goddesses - who was the fairest, who was the most beautiful, the kindest, and even sometimes the most deadly. There were many times where they would actually draw weapons - though he noted, most were woefully undertrained with these blades, and they were mainly for show.

When he thought about it, it wasn't that much different from the religious wars of old. Just a little more silly, and a little more meaningless than he had remembered. He had long since dismissed with the idea of whether it was his age that made it meaningless or the slow realization of nihilism over time. Whichever it was, there was a painful muffling of the beating of his heart-as if the blood itself ceased to flow.

When people had worshipped Odin, he remembered there being a purpose and fire to the people who did. They had been alive, even if he had already tired of war and battle by then. The fire frightened and fascinated him. It was dangerous and beautiful. He remembered enjoying their company, and their talk of something he was familiar with still somehow tickled his fancy-it stirred a fire in him for a while, even for a couple of decades past the Battle of Hastings.

These people before him were excited for their goddesses. Were enthused. But times had made them soft. They had no hopes or dreams beyond picking up their glowing slabs-phones they now called the devices-and with but a few button presses, instantly their brains were flooded with the next evolution of hymns and prayer-an upbeat cacophony of lyrics in a tongue most of them could not speak.

He remembered when masses were held in latin back in the day, and the public which attended such things did not understand the words spoken. But they still received the blessings of their Lord, in spite of not understanding the words being spoken. It was an absurd premise, and yet he could not deny the followers of that faith being enraptured in the ecstasy of ecclesia. He had remembered that hearing the deep Gregorian chants in Latin had stirred something within him that had managed to move his, by then, millions of years old heart, much like the halls of the norsemen.

Suddenly, the sky lit up with neon colored spotlights as the sky holo-projector opened up. A deep chord was played, announcing the arrival of their goddess. She ascended from just beyond the horizon with neon pink hair, flowing down like light from heaven. Her face was beyond realistic. It transcended the real, and entered the divine-no real woman could ever match the size of those inhuman eyes and how they reflected light-the impossibly smooth and round face. When she smiled and giggled, the crowd erupted in a zealous frenzy, screaming for their goddess to pay the any heed.

Her dress itself seemed to defy physics, with floating ribbons all about in unnatural positions, unconcerned with the laws of gravity, as they swirled about upon her person-rotating of their own accord with small ritualistic words that mirrored some of the ones exchanged between her followers earlier, repeated as if they had some magical power over their happiness.

When he had asked them earlier about their meaning, they had simply replied, 'it's just a meme, bro'. From what he had gathered, these memes were some sort of shared subjective personal experience-a sort of shared religious experience.

Speaking of memes, a set of pink, polka-dotted horses galloped across the sea, with streams of rainbows trailing behind them-the meaning of this meme had, as far as he could tell, been lost within the frequent exchanges of this idea from artist to artist, user to user. He had observed that the zeitgeist of humor the day and age had given way to a sort of shock-factor nihilism. The simple fact that they were pink polka-dotted horses were enough to have the crowd erupt in cheers and jubilation.

"Welcome everyone to my debut! My name is Minako Katsuguri, your favorite virtual idol, and welcome to MikuCor's 20th anniversary Holo-Projector Concert! I'm so glad to see all of you out here! I hope you're just as happy to s-"

Somehow, the roar of the crowd completely drowned the loudspeakers Minako was using to speak to them. And he looked to the enraptured faces. In some ways, they were much like the faces of those who had felt a supernatural presence in the halls of Odin, within the great cathedrals of Middle Ages and Renaissance. In others, they were vastly different beasts.

He sighed, and surrendered himself, allowing his mind to soak in the energy, the excitement, the enthusiasm...but dared not join the ear-rupturing cheers as Minako sang an old song to an old cartoon from just before the end of the previous millenium, AD.

At some point during his millions of years on this planet, he had learned that there was little point to even being disappointed in the direction people and society would take themselves. If they were to throw their hands up in the sky as the girl turned into one of those pink horses, he would simply have to accept that and accept that is what people wished to dedicate their lives to.

"Hey, so, I know this is the 20th anniversary concert, but today I also wanted to share with all my fans my new lovely model!"

It was then that her face became a cartoonish equine snout, pink in color-her arms became hoof-like tube appendages and her hair flowed behind her as a mane...

It was at this point that he had had it.

"Nope. Not having ANY of this. Gods are dead, I'm out," he muttered to himself, as he turned on his heel and simply wandered off, leaving the raucuous cheering at the new model reveal from the holo-projector, as they started singing some song that reminded him of vapid unified off-key singing of Kumbayah he had heard before.

But where could he go? He could not die, and he had tried gouging his eyes and ears before-no, he was bound to keep listening, keep bearing witness, no matter where he went or when he went.

And now he had a pink galloping horse goddess seared into his mind for the rest of however much time he had left. However much time.