FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Dammit," Rock said as he looked through the fridge one more time. At this point it was a matter of wishful thinking. As much as he'd talked up making the special birthday cake for his friend Bruce, it'd be a tragedy to admit he hadn't shopped carefully enough and was missing critical ingredients.

He was visiting the older badger, who he admired as something of a role model and good friend, but he hadn't seen much of Bruce during this first day. He was busy with something or other at his job and wouldn't be back until the morning--which happened to be his birthday. The city was unfamiliar to him and the only place he knew was nearby was a small shop that closed early. There would probably be other locations further away, but the later it got the more he worried about finding his way.

There was someone he could ask for directions, but Bruce had warned him against it. "Hauke will probably keep to himself. He's...well, it's a busy time of year for him."

"So, do not disturb? Got it."

Bruce seemed amused for a moment, then shook his head. "I'd just say knock first and let him answer."

Rock would have knocked first anyway, not knowing the strange mythological creature very well despite having spent great amounts of time speaking with Bruce. It was a tight badger-to-badger connection with enough to talk about without bringing up the life stories of everyone else they knew! And he'd caught the hint that there was probably something going on between Hauke and Bruce, but Bruce didn't really talk about that much. Bruce expected Hauke to participate in the birthday festivities, at any rate. So naturally Hauke would have an interest in seeing the cake baked in time for it!

After knocking on the door, the badger made out some fumbling noises, and then a sound like someone heavy being dragged across the earthen floor. The circular door installed in the hole swung open. He'd seen pictures, so he knew this was Hauke; halfway hidden behind the door, he looked like a rooster wearing a mask that reminded him of a welder's helmet with room for a beak. "What is it?" His voice was muffled but intelligible.

The door swung a little wider, and Rock realized that dragging sound had come from the basilisk's long tail as it slithered around on the floor behind him. He was wearing a robe tied around his waist, which let his greenish-blue feathers peek out. The mask was tilted in his direction, so he assumed he had the basilisk's attention. "Hey, hey there. I'm Rock, nice to meet you. I think we were going to be introduced later for Bruce's birthday party, he took me shopping and then went to work. I was just asking about if you knew of any late-night places to shop, we might need eggs to finish baking the cake."

It was hard to tell if Hauke was listening to him, or looking at him, through the mask. But he nodded after a moment. "All of them?"

That didn't quite make sense, but Rock imagined he was talking about an egg carton. "Not all of them, no. Do you have some in there? I'd probably only need two."

Hauke scratched his side and shrugged. "Suit yourself." He shuffled off into the side rooms Bruce had dug for him and returned with two huge melon-sized eggs. "There you go."

"Uh...probably I'd just need one of..." Rock trailed off and sniffed at it. Despite the size, it certainly smelled like chicken. "Just one if they're that big. Thanks!"

"Mmmm," grunted Hauke. He was already shutting the door and going back to whatever he was doing. Probably sleeping, Rock thought. He had seemed out of it.

He went back to the kitchen with the two jumbo sized eggs, and wondered what the deal was--why would anyone have them sitting around in a bedroom? He probably had some of his own facilities down there, the badger thought. "Bruce told he that Hauke had his own entrance...so maybe he's got his own kitchen too? Whatever works. That'd be convenient, actually."

Two eggs of this size were going to be much too much for a cake. "Might as well whip up some brownies or cookies, too," Rock said to himself as he rummaged through the cupboard for more ingredients and started the oven preheating.

Cracking open the first egg, it seemed completely normal--just very large. "Ought to make omelets for two or three guys with some of these," he said as he mixed up the batter, poured it into a baking pan and set it in the oven.

Before too long, they were finished and ready to cool. Rock mixed up the batter for the cake while waiting and swapped the pans to let the brownies sit on the counter. They smelled delicious! It was something nice to add to the cake tomorrow. "But if I cut them up beforehand, and maybe arranged them somehow...yeah."

He cut them into uniformly sized bricks and toyed with how they could be built into a wall; but one or two would be left over. "Might as well have a taste test," he thought to himself as he popped one into his mouth.

The kitchen began to swim and swirl around him, as if there were an earthquake--but it was just his legs giving way. He suddenly felt disconnected from everything, waving his arms and slowly falling to the floor, feeling cold and stiff.

There were strange dreams that came over him then...unclear, and hard to remember. He ached to move but felt locked in place. There was something itchy all over his body, as if his fur had been shaved too close to his skin and had irritated him with razor burn--especially on his crotch and thighs. There was a tugging sensation that grew warmer and warmer and became a little disturbing, right on his groin. It seemed to stretch and fold, then somehow become fluid and flow to new configurations. Something to be concerned about, certainly. And the whole time he could smell the cake baking, and he knew this all couldn't be taking long, but it felt as if he were frozen solid for days...maybe weeks.

There was a jerk back to familiar reality and the passage of time, but a strange discontinuity in space. He was no longer in the kitchen. He could smell that the cake was burned slightly, but not terribly. And Hauke was looming over him as he lay sprawled out across a couch. The basilisk was humming to himself and seemed to be combing him with...with a feather?

"Coming back around, are we?" It was indeed a blueish-green feather, one from the basilisk's shoulders. Hauke stuck it in his mouth, sucking on it for a while, and then continued brushing it across Rock's fur, as if painting him. "I apologize, but I thought you were Bruce, Rocky! You look similar when I'm wearing that thing. I'm glad I smelled the cake starting to burn."

"What's...what's going on?" Rock tried to sit up. But his limbs felt bent, not aligned correctly. While he was pleased that they now moved, he was distressed that all he managed to do was flutter and struggle on the bed.

"Just trying a little change to make some things turn out better," Hauke said before licking the feather again.

"Not...don't want to be a statue!"

"That's not the only kind of transformation I can pull off, my fine feathered friend." He brushed over Rock's belly, and to his surprise the badger felt feathers there...saw feathers there. He was covered with them. They were mostly grey, but a few very vivid black and white feathers stuck out and gave him a mottled pattern on his underside. His feet looked bald, taloned and slim; his arms were still bare, but they bent around at strange angles, with only mere stubs for fingers. "I'll get your head changed, and things will make a lot more sense."

"I'm a chicken? I... you're turning me into..."

"A rooster, yup. You can use those eggs for baking but you usually need to dose whatever you're making with some antidotes, or other concoctions, or it can either cause instant petrification, or...well, what you've got going on." He patted Rock's belly and smiled. "Might be a rough night for you, but after this temporary change I think you'll be a little better suited to the experience. Or .... the 'egg-sperience!' No? Not funny?"

He put aside the feather and reached over his shoulder to pluck another one from his neck. He winced a little, then inspected it. "Fourth one I've used...You're going to be a masterpiece! Close your mouth and look up, please."

Rock did so, and Hauke began painting over his muzzle and whiskers...they shriveled away as if they'd been heated too much, and then hardened, solidifying into...a beak! "Awwwk," squawked Rock.

"Indeed," said Hauke. He brushed the top of Rock's head, as if teasing the fur there. It seemed to stretch longer and longer, with a tugging sensation that felt as though something got wrapped around the feather and yanked at the former badger's scalp. Eventually he caught a hint of a red tipped outcropping on his head. A comb?

"All right, looking good...nice face, just needs a little bit down here." Hauke tickled the underside of Rock's beak, and then rubbed the underside and sides as if kneading dough or clay and tugged out a pair of dangling wattles. "This is about done! I'll get your wings in and give you the most magnificent tail I can manage, and then you'll probably need to get to a nest. My room's fine, but if you'd prefer you can pick your own spot." He stroked his own wattles thoughtfully. "Maybe Bruce's rooms... rawwwk. I'd like that! But it's all about you for now."

"You're changing me into a rooster...not a hen, but a rooster. I'm a brock so I'm becoming a rooster, that's fine." His voice seemed to be accompanied by a clap with every consonant. Rocky realized it was his beak snapping shut; who knew talking with a beak would be tricky like that. "But....But roosters don't lay eggs."

This made Hauke stop and laugh. "Oooh, yeah, about that.... well, there are stranger things in this world that any badger dared to dig deep enough to find. Especially when you go around eating strange things, dear Rocky. You'd just woke me up. I crashed after I'd finished my clutch. Being tired also helped me mistake you for Bruce. I'm sorry about this, but I'm sure this is all going to turn out just fine. I'll be there with you, I'm an old pro at layin' eggs. You'll be fine."

He traced out the contours of the beak a few more times, shaping it and getting the wattles 'just so'. He then started the painting motion across Rock's bare chicken wings, and feathers erupted from the flesh there under the touch of the basilisk's feather. It didn't take long, either because the rest of his body was so far along in the transformation, or because this was just an easier phase. He noticed his belly was feeling tight and was starting to hurt. "My gut's killing me."

"You haven't seen anything yet," Hauke said. He rubbed Rock's belly, pressing gently. "Yup, just one, and it's a big one! Perfect. Can you roll over a bit for me?" He nudged Rock's side, and the transformed badger obliged, finding it easier to control his legs and wings now. "Let's get your tailfeathers niiiiice and pretty."

Rock felt the basilisk's feather brush against his lower back and hips and draw out long... something from inside him. He assumed they'd be long feathers, plumes emerging from whatever encouragement that master feather was providing. Hauke was humming and clucking to himself, admiring his handiwork. Rock couldn't help but notice Hauke's tail was nothing like a rooster's...getting a good look at it now as Hauke worked on Rocky's rear, it was completely scaled except for a somewhat ragged poof of stubby feathers at the end. "Maybe he's got a thing for rooster tails? I guess that'd make sense.... tail envy."

All along, the discomfort in his lower belly was intensifying, solidifying, and growing. He groaned a bit, trying to move his hands...his wings, now...to hold his stomach. It just felt heavy, with a great deal of pressure.

"That'll have to do," said Hauke. He helped Rock stand; looking down, it was hard to tell whose feet were whose, they looked the same. He really was a chicken, a rooster. Strangely, this didn't bother him as much as the fact that his cake might be ruined, if Hauke had found it too late. He wanted to go back to the kitchen to get a look at it.

But he was being led back into the basilisk's rooms where if the crazy scaly-tailed bird was right, he'd be working on squeezing out one of those melon-sized eggs of his own. He felt down a little lower with his wing and came to an abrupt stop over a conspicuously empty space. "You said I'd be a rooster! I... you.... there's nothing down there! What did you do?"

"You ARE a rooster. All their equipment's internal, if you've never gotten a close look at one. You had a nice badger package, by the way! Very befitting a young brock like yourself. I took care of that first with the feather duster transformation treatment. It was a shame to see it kind of morph into what you're going to need for this, but trust me, it's for the best. Being a hen would make this all easier, Rocky, but I don't quite have the skills to go that far. And there's the old tradition about how these things are supposed to happen, and such...as I said, Rocky, you're going to be fine."

Rock found it hard to imagine something worse than being smoothed over down there, but a very close second was the discomfort in his gut. His belly was wrenching back and forth, making him ache and have trouble standing up straight. This couldn't be happening. "This has to be a dream."

"A dream come true?" Hauke cackled a bit. "I'd always figured I'd get Bruce first, sooner or later, but he's awfully careful. Those brownies looked good, by the way! Are you going to keep them in that little wall arrangement you had them set up in? Surrounding the cake, like a diorama? That's so clever."

The abrupt change of topic took his mind off what was happening ever so slightly. "Well, yes. Yeah. I was thinking a bit...oooooh," he trailed off with a moan.

"They might be better as little gravestones. He likes Oingo Boingo, you know, they do that song 'Dead Man's Party'? We could go with that theme, 'Another year older', that kind of thing. And we're here." They had stopped in front of a pile of straw. On closer inspection, it was not just a haphazard pile: it was braided and woven into a big circle, and in the middle were...

"I see two eggs in there."

"Yup, you took the first two into the kitchen." Hauke leaned down and scooped one up. "Lesson one--you've already seen one up close, so we can probably go through this fast. It'll come out this end first," he said, tapping the slightly narrower tip. "Just got to remember to breathe, push, breathe more, push harder. It'll be a little weird for you, I understand that...but you'll get through it, I'm right here."

Rock just stared at it for a few moments before sighing. "All right. This is happening." He reached out for the egg Hauke was holding and traced along the blunt end with a feather tip of his new wing. "What's lesson two?"

"That's the spirit, Rocky! Well, lesson two was that part about breathing. Lesson three is posture. Crouch down, it's easier that way. Like this." He folded his legs underneath himself in a way that made it seem like his knees were bending backwards, which made the former badger shudder. "Just like leaning forward, your chest pointed down. Ever played football? It might be a little like that. Lesson three is that you might have to wait a while...then again, you might not. These things happen at their own speed."

He tried it, and found it wasn't as difficult as it seemed--his new joints worked just fine. It took some of the pressure off his belly, he noted with relief. "So, we just sit and wait?"

"You might want to sit and wait in the nest, not on the floor. But hey! You've got to pick a spot you feel comfortable in, it's all up to you! Wherever you feel comfortable."

Rock tried to stand back up but couldn't manage it. He felt like he was unable to catch his breath, as his chest and belly squeezed down as if constricted by serpentine bands. He imagined it being Hauke's tail, but it was nowhere nearby--it was all his own muscles. "OOoooh...uh. Floor's fine." He was facing the basilisk's nest with Hauke right behind him, fluffing up his new tailfeathers and clucking softly. It was hard not to look at the eggs there, a constant reminder of their size and shape; after finally managing to catch his breath, he swallowed hard and lowered his head, closing his eyes. "I'm pretty sure it's started."

"It sure has! I can already see the tip poking out and saying hello. I guess I took a bit longer than I should have tricking you out with the final features...they weren't really one hundred percent necessary but I think you deserved a good look for this, since it's a special event and--"

Rock snarled, very badgerlike despite the beak. "Can you just be quiet for a while? This is starting to hurt again, and... huuuuh.... nnnnnn.."

Hauke snapped his beak shut, knowing exactly what the poor transformed badger was going through. He sat in the same position as the rooster, except with his own tail trailing off a long distance behind him instead of perking up and off to the sides like Rock's black and white tailfeathers. They bobbed up and down as the rooster labored and pushed. The basilisk slowly kneaded around the sides of Rock's hips, not getting in the way but staying close.

Progress was slow but steady, stretching out the poor rooster's cloaca. "It's... gaaah... it's almost out, isn't it? Yet?"

"About halfway, Rooster Rocky." Hauke spread out the tailfeathers and clucked. "Yes, halfway. Maybe a little less, due to the shape."

"I can't believe this," Rock whined. The loss of concentration and effort made the egg slip a good distance back inside, causing opposite reactions to cross the two beaked faces: a grimace across Rock's and a grin across Hauke's, punctuated with a small cackle.

"I hate it when that happens," the basilisk said as he reached around and kneaded Rock's stomach for a while. "Keep breathing, you'll feel another urge to push. Even though changing you like this has made some of this easier, it's still--and I'm being honest here, Rocky--it's still fairly unnatural. You might have a few more false starts like this."

That prediction came true: Rock would rest, gathering his strength, and then start heroic efforts to push the egg through. Hauke stayed quiet except for an occasional status report, and after the fourth failed attempt, he shuffled a little closer to the struggling rooster and swung his tail in a wide semicircle off to the side. "Getting tired?"

"Getting mmm... nnnghh... mad!" Being a rooster didn't change much about the brock's underlying badger personality! Anger, yes; also, frustration, embarrassment and growing anxiety about how much he'd have to endure. His body started yet again, determined to keep on trying, and he had little choice but to bear down and try yet again.

"It's great watching it from this angle," Hauke said. "If nothing else, thanks for that chance!"

"You're SO WELCOME," Rock snarled dangerously. But it helped, somehow; the egg slid quickly to a familiar position, lodged in place in the rooster's hindquarters. The transformed badger sniffed and moaned pitifully.

Hauke reached down and nudged the top of the stubborn egg, using a bit of leverage to pry it out. While the shell was durable enough for this sort of treatment, it stretched Rock's vent a little more than he was expecting. It was a sharp but short pain and it brought everything to an abrupt end. "RAWWWWWK!"

The shock of the stretch made everything go white, as if he was seeing stars. And then...he was in the sitting room by the kitchen, reclining on a couch, shivering. "Where is it!? Is it out? Is it out?"

"Yeah, I took the cake out when I thought it might be burning," Hauke's voice came from around the corner. He walked around, wearing his mask. What was going on? How'd they get out here? He wasn't a chicken, he was....

Rock felt his arms and face; he had his usual muzzle and furry arms and claws. One more thing to check, and he was almost afraid to do it: he reached down between his legs and fumbled around for a second, and..."It's back, thank goodness. What the hell happened, how did I get here, changed back?"

"You ate a brownie, right? You probably gave yourself quite a trip!" He fished out a small bottle from a pocket on his robe, which brought a few black and white feathers out along with it. One fluttered to the floor, unnoticed. Hauke shook the bottle a few times, and then set it on an end table. "A dose of this will tone that down, so if you eat another one you won't blast off quite so high and it might be more recreational than scary. I didn't realize you were going to use so much of...those ingredients. Take another sip of that if you feel lightheaded again." Noticing the stray feathers, he tucked them back into the pocket. "You seem to be coming out of it though. Did you have any interesting visions or dreams?"

"Interesting...scary! It was awful, I..." He watched one of the black and white feathers tumble from Hauke's pocket. "I need to think about it for a while. Process it."

"Yes, sit on it for a while...let it incubate! Hah, that's the right idea. I'll be in my room if you need me, try to get some sleep Rocky." He fidgeted around with his robe's drawstring, flashing his green and blue plumage again before leaving. "G'night!"

Rock's eyes were drawn to the pale white feather in the center of the room. He slept eventually, but it took a long time to drift off.