FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Once the enormous creature that was the director of the sea-life rescue quietly ferried the last of the dolphins to the water and slipped in after them, the video ended. The finale left Manaaki with a horrible queasiness churning in his stomach after seeing that man swell and twist over minutes into what he was volunteering for. His haunting cries to those he felt were watching him to save his family a terrible echo that the M?ori might never forget. Nor how the transforming man's behavior had changed near the end, along with the look in his eyes.

Benjamin Schofield had died, and they had watched. Bile and panic rose in Manaaki's throat. This was what they wanted to do to him and his wife.

"Wait, listen," Airini said loudly while grabbing his arm, breaking through the flash of alarm that held him in its grip. She spread her assurance to the others, stopping them from responding to a visceral fear that what they'd just seen was their fate as well.

"What just happened in deliciously fishy smelling hu-man living place is awfully bad and took only four hundred eight and zero waves but were required for currents dissimilar to yours. I have trust that the Golden-Eyed ones tell me truth of the waters that Re'ban'Um'lor is hiding sneaky, sneaky, below air-world to help Be'nja'Mi'nnn with hazy thoughts. Very good, yeah?

"If not convinced, you may ask much aged elder We'sol'Tu'qut'Shel about his third many-mate respected wife. Very good, yeah? So'waa'Ma'wae just ask you show proper respect or she seventy percent likely to drive you in ground with smash of tail. Very important you be correct to elder two hundred seven and thirty star orbits older than your Gi-za pyramids!"

Manaaki wasn't responding well, Airini forced him to admit later, when he joined a few tens of others in rushing out of the central pavilion among the hundred odd humans who'd returned to the island along with twelve Children of the Egg. The humans trying to flee from what had just become far too real for them. They only stopped when the Children arrayed themselves before the fleeing people with their implacable bulks. There they emitted smells that inexplicably calmed panicking and hyperventilating humans while the draconic titans rumbled resonant reassurances.

"Youuuu arrrre okay," Blake comforted. His neck curled to pin Manaaki and Airini, who he not even realized he had swept up in his mad headlong rush, against his scaled side. A large ovoid iris filled the M?ori's vision with its proximity. Leaving Manaaki reminded at just how small he'd become in this strange new world.

At least for now.

"Whatever youuuu choose, remember that you'reeee being given a choiceeee that weeee didn't. Pleaseeeee, dooooon't makeeeee that choice iiiiin panic."

He and the other scaly humans, linked with tails draped over necks in an unbroken circle, erupted in a chorus of heavy thrums. A rumbling that resonated within Manaaki's body and made him feel warm. Lodging a sense of calm that he didn't know before. Coming loudest of all from a Child larger than any of the rest encircling the pavilion. Through no outward signs that he could see, the great Child conveyed a presence that none of the others did. As if they heard his thoughts, they swung their piercing steel gray gaze in the Kiwi's direction.

Manaaki tore himself away with difficulty from the intense focus of the winged Child's attention by raising his bowl to his mouth. More than ready to take a hearty chug of the wine given him by the passing taniwha. Delicious, mellow, and distracting. As they might have intended. When he looked again, the Child's gaze had moved on, but the suffocating shroud of their presence had not.

"We only asked one hundred of you to this island," the taniwha Manaaki remembered being named Soma said. "Yet there are now one hundred eight and seventy. Including a doughnut of Children of the Egg. A fact that confirms how dire you yourself recognize the state of your world with the consideration that one hundred three and twenty of you are new to this island."

In the ensuing surge of questions, one thunderous shout soared above all the others. Leaving silence as all eyes turned to the unrepentant American who had a much shorter and smaller woman grabbing her arm and shaking it with an unheeded warning.

"What the fuck is a doughnut of Children of the Egg?" she said, shaking off her companion to beckon for another bowl of her drink. The smaller woman planted her hands on her hips and glared with what Manaaki thought was a rather elfin look.

"She meant twelve. There are twelve Children, you flammable, booze-soaked dishrag. As you knew before your vapid comment meant to distract and confuse," said another of the golden-eyed aliens. The one with tigerish yellow stripes.

"Watch her!" Airini hissed in his lowered ear. A reminder that he didn't need. Remembering all too well the warnings they'd been given about the Golden-Eyed one known as 'Wily'.

"Y'all are fucking hilarious," the subject of the discussion said before drinking deeply from her bowl. She worked the fingers of one hand grasping her refill until only the middle remained extended in a nearly universal gesture of rudeness. "When do I grow a tail to beat you with?" she said with a smack of her lips.

"Time," the one behind the counter succinctly stated while using the whiskers sprouting from the length of its snout to continue to dispense and sanitize the wooden plate ware within its reach. The single word drawing a myriad of colors to erupt along the lengths of the Dreamers as well as undulating bobs of the Children's heads.

"What do you know?" Airini bluntly asked Blake after laying her hand on his arm to bring his attention down to her level. Around the pavilion, others were asking the other Children nearest them the same. Some seeking with desperation to know if their transformed acquaintances were involved beforehand in what had befallen them.

"Nothing, I ssssswear!" their daughter's former neighbor said to Manaaki's suspicious wife with an odd twisting motion to his neck. "It isssss only that they must beeeee doing this all tooooo aaaaa plan."

All the other Children made that strange bobbing motion of their heads again. Like they were nodding, which after a moment, Manaaki realized was exactly what they were doing. He saw that the gravity of needing to relearn how to read the behavioral cues of the former humans was only then beginning to coalesce into his awareness.

The titan, whose face filled the height of the gap between floor and ceiling of the k?punipunitanga, made a grumbling snort and shifted his head slightly while fireworks of colors crossed his glistening scales. The enormous eyes of the Dreamer shifted from aquamarine to flax as those orbs scanned everyone before him.

"All Children among you little soil-walkers ride the same currents. The Aged One reminds only of the need to limit the passage of what is before to what is behind as we swim together."

"Can someone explain that to me since I'm not a big alien eel?" the beautiful blonde that was grating on the large Kiwi shouted out. Quickly spinning the camera on a tripod before her to contribute additional commentary for a recording that couldn't possibly have been live before swinging back to await the response she'd demanded.

"The diminishment of entropy has reached an imminently crucial proximity," Truth said. Leaving the French speaker and the tall American woman spluttering in companionable laughter.

"Did you... did you just say the time is nigh?"

A bait that the aliens did not rise to meet. Ignoring the paranoid American Samoan instead.

"In this bowl," Wily said, bopping a spun bit of crockery forward onto the table in the middle of the crowd with a flick of her whisker. Clacking white wooden blocks with black pips in unique patterns spilled across the surface in a fan when the bowl overturned. "There is a cheap trinket representing each of your previously meaningless existences. We are not pressuring you to demonstrate before others of your species your shortsighted intransigence, so there will be a time frame of two hours to make the choice. If you want to leave, pick one up, hold it to your forehead, and state your intention three times."

Manaaki wasn't surprised to see a bowl of the same white cubes in his r?ma after they had excused themselves. Nor was he surprised when two hours later there was a noticeably smaller number of humans left on the island.

"Superlative!" Soma exclaimed in apparent happiness. "Only forty and three of you beached yourselves on razor sharp stones!"

"Question!" the now all too familiar voice of a visibly drunk Patti called out from where she was leaning heavily on her diminutive and displeased companion. "When we...hic...transform. Are we going to talk like you, too? Because you are just the weirdest, cutest, biggest finned eel I've ever heard. What episode of that cartoon... Loofa George Blown Trousers or whatever... taught you how to speak English?

"Episode 13 Season 5," Soma said with a rumble that sounded a little frustrated to Manaaki. Rocking back onto her tail, the alien's whiskers delivered a pillow into her hands to squeeze while bursts of color danced across the scales of her rain-dampened scales. Manaaki could sympathize. The American had that effect on people.

The room fell silent for an awkward length of time. Broken only by the rustling scales of the Children of the Egg shifting their bodies to glance uneasily at their companions, the rain, and the unceasing pounding of the surf. Some attention, both human and not, fell on Patti, who reacted by emitting a sharp belch and glaring back with defiance.

"Whatchu chowderheads looking at, huh? I'll fight y'all!" she said, slurring even more than before. The young woman with Patti shook her head in dismay with one hand covering her eyes.

"We are getting off topic," Truth said with a wriggle of its body that started at its head. "Time is precious, as has been noted, and the window for humanity to remain solvent draws nearer to closing with every increment we do not proceed. There are one hundred five and thirty humans remaining on this island willing to take part in the reclamation of their water. It is time to begin your transition.

"Manaaki," Truth finished by calling out his name. Startling the man who could not imagine why he was the first out of these people from so many nations and backgrounds. "Step forward, please, if you will accept a place in a world where more than one intelligent species can thrive."

Taking a deep breath, Manaaki stood from his cross-legged position on the pillow. Stopping after one step to turn and reach out to his wife, who smiled and accepted his hand. "We are a package deal," he said to the alien, who bobbed its head in an undulating fashion and swept a glowing whisker onwards to the head of the Aged One peering closely at them.

"We are ready," Airini said when they stood before the head of the Aged One that soared above them to scrape the expansive ceiling. "To do what is right for a world that we have lost."

The eye, larger than Manaaki, shifted from his wife to look at him. He could even hear the movement of the iris as it dilated and then constricted to focus upon him. "And you?"

The man once known as 'The Wall' pounded his chest twice in affirmation. Meeting the titan's eyes. The Aged One lifted a small corner of his lip near the jaw and pitched its voice lower for the M?ori couple alone to hear. A remarkable feat.

"As you have been a rock for each other, now you must be one for everyone else. Be true, and the waters will be yours forever. So'waa'Ma'wae and we will move oceans for you and this world."

Manaaki felt a tingling in his right hand and next to him Airini gasped as she looked at hers in stunned wonder. A single iridescent diamond-shaped scale surrounded by a rough circle of green tinged skin had appeared. With a joined her in holding their hands up to the startled shouts and gasps of their audience.

"We don't know why your tails are all twisted into knots now," he heard Soma say as he and Airini returned to their seat. Uncomfortable with the rapacious attention focused on him by that group from South America. ", when this is exactly what you were told is awaiting you if you remain."

The rest of the words of the growing bedlam in the pavilion faded as Manaaki's world distilled to what was on his hand. Poking it with a finger, he felt the tug on his skin as it shifted with the movement of the hardened plate. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Airini exploring her first change as well, with the same look of wonder that he knew was on his face. The room spun, and he felt bile rising in his throat just as someone placed a bucket in front of him in time for him to vomit into.

He blinked, and the bucket vanished. An eerily echoing but gentle voice came from just behind him and Airini before an alien head intruded over her shoulder to twist around and block the others from their view.

"The scale is a superficial reminder for yourselves and others that your change has begun. Remember that your involvement is voluntary. It is important that you act on your own free will for the most desirable outcome to be realized. The opportunity for harm to occur if you feel coerced into action is immense."

"But... why?" a member of the group who'd returned with Reiko and Eiken asked timidly.

In reply, Patience made a toneless grunt as his head lifted away, collecting their empty dishware as he turned. "Soon, your numbers will dwindle as your resolve wavers. You will have some of your answers once the likelihood of further departures lowers."

"Some?" Airini said questioningly in Manaaki's ear. He could only shrug and suggest patience, more worried about how many would back out now that physical proof of what they were being asked to undertake lay bare on the back of his hand. The skin surrounding the scale itched intolerably.

An attractive but incredibly pale and rather dull eyed woman clinging to the man beside her took one look at Airini's hand from the long line of others waiting to inspect it and burst into wailing sobs.

"Jonathan, no. Jonathon, I can't do this. I can't do this. Jonathon, please! Come back with me to where we belong! This is too big for me. Too big for us! I don't want to be alone," she said, ending on a plaintive note.

The rangy man she clung to wrapped his arms around her and led her away from the sight of Manaaki and Airini to the far side of the bar. The woman's pleas growing louder as Jonathan quietly told what seemed to be his wife that he was staying no matter what.

"It's for you, Cathy. I want to do this for you and everyone else pained by the sight of what we do to our oceans. It might be for the best if you go back. You're going off like a frog in a sock."

"Not without you! Not without you! I have nothing! My family is gone, and so is my best friend! Please Jonathan, I can't be one of...those things, and I can't be without you."

"Listen, you sniveling hoon. We only want willing volunteers for this project. I expect to hear no more of your ultrasonic screeching. Really, you humans have no understanding how unbearable your voices are to species that can hear beyond your sliver of the spectrum, and if that's not enough, you blast your nonsense at such a volume that you drive other species into suicide. It's just one more example of how tremendously bad you are for everything. Except for the exalted groups asked or chosen to ascend, your race barely warrants the honor of being recognized as anything more than a virus."

This time it wasn't the other Taniwha to tell Wily that she'd gone too far. It was the Children of the Egg rising from their crouches with the rattling of their crests and scales in agitation. The smell of electricity was nearly overpowering as the dragon-like humans guardedly swept those they'd accompanied into their embraces with wary eyes fixed on the antagonistic Taniwha.

Blake shocked Manaaki and Airini when he swung his hand around, with clawed fingers spanning higher than Manaaki was tall, to shepherd them back against his chest. His body inflated with a rumbling growl from deep within as he fixed his expression on Wily. The sunlit world grew dim as the uneasy man stretched his wing to hide the M?ori couple in his hands from sight. Against their touch, the formerly smooth scales of his skin had now bristled like a t?turi bush with an alarming amount of heat venting from beneath.

From beyond their shelter, among all the panicked voices and over their own demands to be let out, loud bird calls erupted that silenced the bedlam. Immediately, a sense of calm entered Manaaki's mind that he knew was not his. A violation that he didn't know how to understand. Next to him, Airini gagged with her hand against her mouth. Around them, Blake jumped as if shocked and his scales trembled before falling closed. The smell of ozone fading as his outer layer of skin sealed. Outside, a voice came over the sound of the enormous raspy breaths outside as the pressure building on their minds grew stronger in time with the volume of strident chirps and warbles.

"The force of your current has been shown, mother who soars in the skies above. But this tide is not one to find your voice in," the giant Taniwha cautioned the gray-eyed Child. "Be as still as pond water, Mother Up High, and wait until you know the trace forward. Focus on the hu-mans in direst need and await their acceptance."

After a moment, the tensions locking Blake in place and the energy surging through Manaaki's mind eased. Soon, he felt he was in control of his own thoughts once more, as did Airini. Their protector released his hold and took a step forward around them to settle with his head and body prostrated at the feet of another Child.

"Can any of you... jackasses give me my fucking tail yet? This mawkish bullshit is boring me... More of your conversation would infect my brain."

"Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast." Patti's sober partner replied as the larger woman staggered against her.

"I know what I signed up for," the American slurred. "Gimme my goddamned reminder that I'll be... Uncle Sam's underwater pet. Ah!," she said. Breaking off mid-rant with a sudden yelp of pain.

Unlike the more benign change to Manaaki's and his wife's hands, the tip of Patti's right index finger swelled and turned a dark green. Miniscule scales prickled just above the thickening skin as her finger absorbed its human nail. A white nub of bone parted flesh at the tip of the newly featureless fingertip and surged outward, darkening to black that blended well with dark green scales and hide around it. The claw continued to extend until it curved slightly to form a hook pointed in towards the woman's palm. Patti blinked, then shrugged and used the changed anatomy to punch through the top of a beer can that had magically appeared in her other hand. She chugged it with a belch and did not seem all that bothered, unlike some others in the wharenui that she was no longer strictly human.

"Bitch ass pussies," she said, squinting blearily at the clawed digit and the people crying in sudden fear. "No biggie." With that, the drunk sank backwards into the pillows surrounding an unused table and into snoring unconsciousness.

"Shit!" exclaimed the woman, whose name Airini later revealed to Manaaki as Titania, before clapping her hands over her mouth with an embarrassed squeak. Bending down, she pulled her inebriated partner's hand up to examine the transformed finger. Taking a picture with the camera she pulled out of the black fanny pack around her waist.

The sobs of Cathy on the other side of the pavilion grew fainter among the unintelligible comforting words provided by her husband. Manaaki was quick to notice that the large, gray-eyed dragon was gone as well. He thought the curve of a dragon's neck rising above the central bar was the missing Child, despite being held in high regard among the other Children, the gray-eyed dragon's absence did nothing to slow the arguments and rationalizing underway. The aliens making it clear that it wanted an answer from every human that day, adhering to a timeline that they refused to share many details of.

"You have many examples to follow," Truth said when the conversations slowed to a halt. "Whatever you may decide after we've laid out for you what is at stake, you must decide."

Three people vanished in an instant, startling Manaaki right through to his core with the suddenness of their disappearance. Now that the crowd's reactions were his focus, he could see others taking horrified glances at the green and clawed finger of the American and growing pale. He saw the terror in their eyes before they filled with flighty desperation as they looked at the golden-eyed aliens and vanished. Those who disappeared from groups that included a Child of the Egg left the onetime humans swinging their heads back and forth and warbling loudly. Displays of behavior similar to Blake's. An agitation at the disappearance of those they felt responsible for safeguarding. Whether the humans knew of or desired that guardianship or not.

Manaaki snapped his attention to Titania when she rose and turned away from Patti to speak in a clear, authoritative voice. A short quote the M?ori man vaguely recognized, and that she directed to the cluster of aliens silently waiting for the human chaos to settle.

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."

The diminutive woman strode boldly before the vast head of Soma's revered elder and performed a half bow with her arms splayed at her sides. From Manaaki's greater distance, he could see as the ancient taniwha's eye swivelled to look across the room before focusing on the human who looked like she could fit her entire body inside his nostril. He rumbled an inaudible message that Titania gasped and recoiled upon hearing. Her hand darted to the pack at her waist before she grabbed her wrist to halt the reflexive movement. The skin across the girth of her wrist was now a lighter green than the Maori's with a single scale of a pale yellow like Wily's growing within the center of the discoloration.

"Does it hurt?"

"Do you still feel human?"

"Do you feel the urge to eat humans?"

The group posed many questions like that to Titania, just as they'd asked Manaaki and Airini, and re-asked to see if their answers had changed. They still could not resolve many of the queries to their asker's content, or to match their expectations more likely, and emotional stress built in the two. The harried sensation only being made worse by repeated queries on whether they felt the same.

Because as the day dragged on, they didn't know if they did.

Blake asked if they wanted an escort back to their hutch, but they declined. Wanting to set an example even if they didn't feel quite right. To ease his doubts and the anxieties of others, he told the story of Ranginui. The great heavens where knowledge was held, and his role in the world's creation. Airini sang of T?ne's journey to add to the story, but eschewed the accompanying dance, whispering to him instead that she thought she'd chunder if she stood up.

Only a small fraction of the people in the wharenui were interested in hearing the legend Manaaki felt reflected the moment. The gaining of knowledge. Many choose to revel in the alcohol freely offered, or in silent contemplation of the scales now sprouting from their hands. By the end of the day, only a fraction of the humans who'd awoken that morning on the island remained.

Manaaki rubbed his scale, feeling the cool sleekness of the alien feature. No. He was wrong, he realized. There were no more humans to be found in the camp, only spirits and gods.