FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This was the second of Leland's letters to find Jasmine, and yet it offered no less feeling of being watched than the first. She lived in the same address as always, so it made sense Leland still knew where she lived. However, she doubted moving anywhere on Planet Earth would help her escape his omnipresent eye. She folded the letter and set it on the counter. The package was cradled against her in one arm. It was light, or at least it felt that way. Everything on a human scale was smaller to a beefy wolverine, as Jasmine had gotten used to over the past week. Now to find out what was in store next for her if she decided to go through with it again.

She took it with her to the couch where she sat down and put it on the coffee table in front of her. She extended her index claw and wondered what creature would be presented to her this time? Going along with the theme of animals she'd been so far, she expected something like a weasel or a ferret, maybe. Badger? Mink? Stoat? Those were all mustelids, and though skunks weren't technically mustelids, she included them in the same bunch. More possibilities ran through her mind as she stuck her claw into the box flap and sliced the tape down the middle. She opened the flaps and immediately recognized the orange and black-striped fur pattern of a tiger.

A toothy smile lit up her face. I get to be a tiger? Sweet! She pulled the onesie out of the box and stood up to see it at its full height. Though it was light on the whole, the fur was rough and dense, nearly more so than her own impenetrable wolverine coat. The shoulders were broad, and the sleeves were spacious. The underbelly was a smooth tan color. She pulled up the hood to see cute, black-tipped ears with white dots on the back of them. A fun fact she knew about tigers was that those dots were meant to resemble eyes to ward off ambush from other tigers. Jasmine gave them a little flick with her fingers and giggled.

But there was more to the suit than she expected, something very strange. Even as she had stood up to let it unfold to its full height, it wasn't completely out of the box yet. The legs were out, but the torso they were attached to was still folded up. It looked like the suit was made of an overly long tube of tiger fur with the hind legs haphazardly attached at the center. She picked one leg up and rubbed it between her thumb and fingers. It felt normal, like she could fit her legs in them, so why were they so oddly placed?

Jasmine pulled the suit further out of the box, pouring it over her shoulder as she did. It came out of the box in short order, bringing with it another pair of legs and the tail. That confused the hell out of Jasmine. What is it? A six-legged tiger? A tigerpede? She held it in front of her to inspect the legs in the middle again. To see the whole thing, she had to hoist it in the air way over her head. Even then, the second pair of legs (the actual hind legs, it seemed) were half on the carpet.

"How the actual hell am I supposed to wear this thing?" Jasmine muttered to herself as she continued looking over the strangely proportioned onesie. The zipper ran down from the collar like always but was only as long as she'd expect on another suit, reaching just short of the middle set of limbs. She tried envisioning what it would turn her into. There was the tigerpede, an elongated tiger with three sets of legs, a cursed image she didn't want to hold on to for too long. It didn't make sense either considering every form she'd taken so far was anthropomorphic. Maybe it stands on two legs and has four arms? Like Goro from Mortal Kombat. That didn't make much more sense either.

Wait. I think I'm looking at this wrong. Jasmine turned around and laid the suit face down on the couch from. It was long enough to dangle over each armrest. Looking at the deflated onesie from that perspective helped build a more accurate idea of what it really was. What if it isn't six-legged or anthropomorphic? What if it's both? She grabbed the suit by the shoulders and lifted the top section upright so that it was at a right angle with the couch. Finally, it clicked. A centaur.

Images of bare-chested men, their torsos rising from the shoulders of a horse's body, flooded Jasmine's mind. The horse bodies were promptly replaced by a tiger's. Then the human portions became tigrine. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense, she thought. What was that supposed to be called? A centiger? A tigertaur? She didn't know the etymology of the word centaur. Too lazy to look it up, she went with the term Tigertaur for the simple reason that it sounded cooler.

No matter the name, there was still the question of how she was supposed to wear it. Where was she supposed to put her legs? The forelegs made more sense as then the torso portion would fit her, but what about the rear half? Maybe she was supposed to put her legs in the hind pair while her arms went in the forelegs, but that would leave her completely inside of it with the torso section unfilled. She thought of those two-person horse suits where there was one person for each pair of legs; one in the front, another in the back. Maybe I can convince Maria to huddle in this thing with me, she thought facetiously. We'll both be a tigertaur. Wonder how that'll work. It wouldn't, she knew. No doubt Leland intended the suit for Jasmine and for Jasmine only. The previous onesies had changed her in mysterious ways already. Whatever this suit would accomplish couldn't be too incredible by comparison.

That was if she put it on. The worlds she had traveled to so far were both dramatically different to each other based on the animal she had become. She had trouble imagining what a world full of tigertaurs would entail. The wolverine world she lived in now was a hyper-competitive society based on might-makes-right. What would a world of savage predators entail? How the hell did they even drive cars? Do cars even exist? It seemed dangerous (minus the no cars possibility). Jasmine looked at putting the suit on similarly to jumping into a tiger pit at the zoo. Sure, she would be a tiger, but that helped very little when everyone else was one too. Then again, if everyone was a tiger, perhaps nobody was.

She realized she was still holding the suit up. Looking at it again brought images of strapping tiger men, their muscular abs fading into the feral majesty of a beast whose physique outmatched even the strongest human. She envisioned them walking, each step twinging their muscles across a tautly wound collage of black stripes. They walked the streets casually, their splendor nothing out of the ordinary. One would greet the other, no more aware of each other's species than Jasmine would here in this world. She wondered, more seriously this time, what does a society like that look like? Only one way to find out.

She considered taking the suit to the bathroom like before, but reckoned correctly that it would be too small for what she was going to turn into, even considering that it was sized up for a wolverine like her. The living room would provide the most space, given she moved some furniture around. Quick work was made of the place. Thanks to her wolverine strength moving the couch was no issue, nor the coffee table. It left a broad plane of open carpet featuring square depressions where the couch and table legs had been. From there she stripped herself nude and chucked her clothes aside. I wonder what kind of clothes they'll have in this place. Will I need two pairs of pants, or just one?

She picked the suit off the couch and brought it over to the center of the floor. Pulling the zipper down from the collar revealed that there was no opening for the back portion. It was smooth fabric/skin with nothing for a second party to fill. So much for that idea, not like I was going to invite anyone else into this thing. She turned around and held the suit behind her so she could step into it. It fit to her legs snugly thanks to the great fluff of wolverine fur. The back half hung from it awkwardly as she pulled the torso up and fit her arms through the sleeves. Normally the suit would shrink to her skin once the transformation started, but it looked like it was doing that already with how tightly it fit around her. Her muscle gut jutted halfway out of the zipper.

"Hope I can zip this damn thing up," she muttered to herself as she grabbed the pull tab. It took a deep inhale and some quick jerks, but she was able to close it all the way to the collar. Her belly and bosom looked ready to explode out of the front side, but it was on. She looked over her shoulder at the second half of the suit. It sagged from her lower back like a deflated bounce house. The legs were flat on the carpet with the tail running between them. How is it gonna fill that out?

She turned her head back forward to inspect her chest. The first thing she noticed was that the zipper had disappeared already, trapping her in the suit. "Damn. So we're doing this already?" Suddenly the suit shrank on her, sucking into her skin more tightly than it already was. "Oof. I'll take that as a yes."

The process went as always. Orange fur slipped down her paws, swallowing her palms, thumbs, and fingers to the tips. She saw the same happen to her ankles and feet, thus her massive wolverine steppers were gone. The hoodie performed the same around her head, swallowing her face from every direction until it had filled her visor and snout. There was no mirror for her to look into but to her left she saw the TV's empty black screen. A hazy reflection looked back, its gulonian features rapidly vanishing.

It started with the usual plunge of pressure onto her musculature. Her physique started to slim, starting with that pronounced gut and bosom of hers. The sensations stretched across her arms and legs as the biceps and hamstrings thinned themselves out. It wasn't painful, but by no means was it comfortable. It was felt across her entire body, most severely wherever the most drastic changes were occurring. She put her paws over her chest where her breasts were sinking slowly. They flattened out across her pecs which, though smaller than they had been, were still broad and chiseled. The same happened to her trunk which now featured an immaculately carved set of washboard abs.

Am I becoming a man again? She reached between her legs but found nothing. Literally. There was nothing there. Anything like a reproductive organ was gone, leaving nothing but smooth, fuzzy pelvis. For a moment she panicked, afraid that she'd be robbed of her sex. Then she remembered, If I'm going to be a tigertaur, those are going to be somewhere else behind me. She looked over her shoulder and was shocked to see the rear portion of the suit standing on its hindlegs. It did so shakily, looking like it was only partially filled by air or flesh. Much of the skin was still wrinkled and the tail sagged. Jasmine dared to touch it. There was something inside of it, ill-defined and turgid, flesh and bone, perhaps. She watched as it rose gradually and gained its footing, becoming a bonafide part of her.

She was torn out of her fascination by the sudden squeeze of pressure across her bones. The suit was in its final stage, i.e. the suckiest part: bending her skeleton into the proper shape. It was hardest on her limbs and skull which had to force themselves into a tigrine mold. It felt like giant hands were squishing her cranium like it was wet clay. Her snout was underneath an anvil as it shrunk into her face and began sprouting longer, thicker whiskers. She had it no better in the legs as her femurs were squashed into humeri and her tib-fibs became uln-rads.

But the worst of it was in her spine. The hilt of it fell out of her pelvis and drilled into the rear portion of the suit, now officially a tiger body. Nerve-endings spread across it like a million tiny fingers, each one discovering a new part of her to feel and experience. It was like blood rushing into a numb part of the body; pins and needles all around. She hissed and swore throughout. More bones were being created from old ones. Her pelvis turned into a sternum complete with ribs, although there wasn't a heart or lungs to protect. She felt the last of her vertebrae spill into her tail, bringing with them sensation and control. Once they were at the tip, she automatically performed her first tail flick as a tiger.

Then, as always, all those unpleasant sensations vanished. It was over. The tigertaur was complete.

Jasmine stood there for a few moments, stretching her arms to collect herself. Looking down at herself she saw a tan underbelly studded with abs that ended when the tiger body did. Bringing her arms up she saw how defined they had become. While the wolverine body was beefy and huge, the tiger body was lithe and cut. Her paws were only slightly less massive, still wielding a strength no human could dream of. Flexing her fingers drew a terrifying array of long, sharp, white claws from the tips. It was fun just watching them go in and out.

But that was only one portion of her body, the "human" side. She looked over her shoulder again and saw the tiger half standing behind her, tail swaying lazily. It was like an entirely different animal patiently waiting for her to tell it where to go. She could feel all of it, and yet her mind had trouble recognizing that it was indeed a part of her. Growing a tail was one thing. Growing most of entire freaking tiger was another. She ran her paw down the top of it, her "back". It felt like someone was touching her mid-spine, that someone being her. Even as she saw and felt her paws rubbing the fur, it was impossible to fully grasp that both parts were her.

"Her". Was it even accurate to call her that anymore? She wondered that herself now that her breasts were gone, replaced by a nicely squared set of pectorals. She tried leaning over to the right and bending down (a very awkward maneuver in its own right) to see what was between her hind legs, but she couldn't get a good angle. However, the movement was enough to swing the set of organs she had hanging from her new pelvis, something she felt dearly. That settled it. She was no longer a she and Jasmine was no longer Jasmine. Jared was back, baby.

"So. What am I gonna do now?" he wondered aloud in a voice deeper than it ever had been. He looked down at himself one more time to get his bearings straight so that he could learn how to move but saw something that stopped him dead. The living room carpet was gone, replaced by a hardwood floor. That wasn't there before. He looked up and realized that everything had changed. He had been transported to some rustic-looking building made entirely out of wood. The decorations were gone and so was the furniture. There weren't any windows. Looking up he saw a conical roof made of thatch and crossbars. All that covered the floor were animal skin rugs that looked like they had come from deer or antelope.

"How the hell did I get here?" He started turning around in place, his four legs scuttling beneath him to perform a 360. He didn't even realize he was doing it; he was so focused on his new surroundings. The place looked like a hunting cabin, missing only a rifle rack and a cot to sleep in. It had a fireplace, albeit a crude one. In one corner there was another deerskin and some crudely hewn pillows, probably where he was supposed to sleep. Is this my place? Is this even an apartment?

He finally realized he was moving and came to an awkward halt. His legs were spread beneath him like a newborn fawn trying to get their legs beneath them. His tail twitched behind him manically, activated by becoming alert. "How did I do that?" It had to have been muscle memory, like when he'd put a bra on for the first time as a skunk. In this world he'd spent an entire life as a tigertaur; the body knew how to operate it, but he did not.

Chill. Just relax. Let your body do the walking. He took a deep breath and envisioned himself striding forward. You did it already. You can do it again. Come on. Just like that, his four feet began to move. They strode ahead seamlessly, one in front of the other, perfectly balanced. Jared simply delivered the command like he would with just two legs, and yet both pairs acted like he was controlling them separately. He would only falter when he thought too hard about it, something that happened a few times while pacing the cabin. He would take a few steps with his arms held out to keep himself balanced before he would try and direct one of his legs a certain way and trip himself up.

"Easy, easy," he cooed to himself. "Like riding a bike. A four-legged, half ton, living, breathing bike." A few more laps around the floor and he'd hit a rhythm. It wasn't rocket science; just don't think about it. If anything, it required less finesse than what a human needed to walk on two legs. Before long he was making trips back and forth across the cabin like it was nothing. Put One Foot in Front of the Other from Santa Clause is Coming to Town started playing in his head, making him wonder, Do tigers even celebrate Christmas? Was there a tigertaur Jesus like there was a skunk and wolverine Jesus? Can you even crucify a tigertaur?

Once that morbid thought had passed, he wondered again what kind of world waited for him outside the cabin. What kind of society of tigertaurs existed out there? How was his family? Was this the same place as his apartment? Or somewhere else entirely? With no windows to peer through (or look at his reflection in) his only source for an answer was through the door in front of him. It was crude, like just about everything else around him. It hardly stood out against the surrounding walls, being made from the same wood. He sauntered over to it and pushed it open.

The light of the outside poured in, but he was not greeted by the hum of a city. There were no buildings, no apartment, no town, nor any other measure of civilization. Before him were the trees of a forest so dense he could not see past the first several yards. Their deciduous canopy blanketed the mossy ground with their shadow, letting through only the thinnest rays of sunlight. There were no other tigers, or any animate life to speak of. Only nature's murmur was there to greet him begrudgingly.

Jared stood in the doorway for a few moments longer, eyes scanning the yonder tree line. Is this it? Where am I? He took the first intrepid steps out into the open, feeling the moist earth sink beneath his paw pads. Looking to his right and left he saw nothing but more forest, its atmosphere blued over by a thin mist. His black ears strained into the woods, flickering at whatever hints of sound they could find. There was still precious little, none of which alluded to company.

Am I alone out here? Is this even anywhere near my apartment? He stepped the rest of the way outside, out of the cabin's shade. He looked at it and saw that it resembled a hunting cabin like it had on the inside. If that's what it was, what was he doing there? Was it his or someone else's? Nothing resembling a trail led into the forest, leading him to doubt that it was meant for anyone else. If this was his place, then where had everything else gone?

The answers, if he would ever find them, were deeper in the forest. He took a deep breath. It's alright. I'm a tiger. Nobody's gonna mess with me, right? I mean, other tigers I guess, but something tells me I'm not going to run into any of them soon. Thus, he began his, turning his head to look back before his only shelter was swallowed by the trees.

The woods were not so suffocatingly dense throughout. Not far into his trip did he wander into varying ground, the earth swelling over hills so steep they were bare with rock. The ground was strewn with twigs that would snap beneath his feet, adding a somber soundtrack to his lonesome journey. The canopy was alive with birds, their chirps being his first bit of company since his arrival in this world. He would see one on occasion as it hopped and twitched its way up a branch before shuttling off into flight. They regarded him no more than the trees they flitted between, their beady black eyes not acknowledging the large cat roaming the forest floor.

His ears flicked suddenly, and he came to a stop. It was automatic, done without his input. He rounded his eyes and turned towards the noise to filter it more clearly. A steady rumble in the distance made his fur stand on ends. He was drawn to it, though he wasn't sure what it was. Instinct made him turn towards it.

The building dryness in his throat told him what it was before he began to recognize the sound of a running stream. He saw it when cresting over a hill, just a thin brook no deeper than up to his knees. It ran from as far as he could see in both directions, vanishing like a long stretch of road. The air was rife with the smell of moist earth and the visits of other animals. He smacked his lips while realizing how thirsty he was. It had been a long walk. He'd earned himself a drink.

He came up to the bank. His feet sank into the sandy ground, leaving a trail of his gargantuan footprints. His reflection appeared on the surface, and though it warped and bounced with the flow of water, it offered the first real look at himself since being transformed. He knelt on his forelegs to get a better look. Though his eyes were remarkably large with dangerously yellow irises, they maintained the same shape that had defined him since his days as a human. His jowls were massive, heavily padded as they were by a bush of white and black fur thicker than his paw. Wings of white sprouted around his eyes and onto his brow. The pattern of black stripes was symmetrical across his face. He opened his mouth and saw giant, sharp fangs outclassing what he'd had as a wolverine by several leagues. His tongue was a massive paddle studded with white flesh spikes capable of rending flesh in just a few licks. Framing it were glistening black lips that quivered with his every exhale.

Jared was no expert on tigers, but he thought he knew what kind he was. His massive size and the kind of forest he was in lent to the idea that he was a Siberian tiger, the most massive of all the subspecies. He couldn't hope to name all of them, not without his phone handy. The other two kinds he knew of were Bengal and Sumatran tigers. Neither of them was this massive or fluffy. If he was either of those, he would've expected to have been transported to a jungle somewhere. He smiled to himself, pride swelling a little. I got the coolest kind of tiger there is. Awesome.

Breaking his self-appreciation was his building thirst, a reminder of why he'd gone there in the first place. He noticed how he was already kneeling on his forelegs but couldn't reach his face into the water like a cat would. He leaned over and dipped his fingers into the stream, feeling its gently persuasive current pushing and swirling. He let his rear legs fold underneath him, forming a giant tiger loaf so he could get comfortable and start drinking. He scooped some water into his paw and slurped from it. It cooled the fur around his mouth and trickled down his whiskers. The taste suffered from the soil but did not hinder the water's blissful quench.

He took a few more pawfuls before wiping his paw on his chest and taking more time to look around. Where would he go now? What was there to do? He could follow the creek for as long as it wandered. Maybe he'd find whatever it fed into, but how far away was that? Would he be able to find his cabin from there? What if he ran into another tiger? Were there even any out there? Of course, there had to have been. Unless this was some mythical realm full of unique creatures (which wouldn't have surprised him at this point), there was no way he was the only one of his kind. He knew tigers, like all large predators, were extremely territorial. Maybe this was his, and any potential rival who wandered into it would leave upon realizing it was his.

He looked around at the forest. Is all this really mine? He sniffed the air and picked up something he hadn't given mind to. It was the smell of him, that which wafted on the wind and hung like a fog. He'd been here before many times. This was his stream, and no one else's. Those who decided to drink from it did so on his accord and at their own risk. Nature documentaries he'd seen in the past came to mind with figures of how much territory a single tiger possessed. He didn't recall the exact number, but he knew it was measured in square miles. Not acres like some plot of land. Square miles.

And all of it was his to explore.

Jared got back on his feet. He took a deep breath through his nose, flooding his mind with the many intricate scents that hovered around him. Looking back up the stream in the direction it flowed, he wondered without concern, What will I find at the end of that? He ventured forward, off to discover what belonged to him.

* * *

The creek wandered for a great stretch, reaching into varying swathes of flora as unique as they were foreign to Jared. More hills greeted him, some affording good views of the land around him. In the distance he saw the blue ridges of a mountain range, their slopes textured by the clumped treetops. A river, likely the one his creek fed into, snaked between them and through the Manchurian topography. As nice as the thought may have been, he doubted all of it was his territory, but he was on a mission just to see how much of it was.

He did not make it to the end of the creek when night fell. The deerskin back at his cabin seemed very comfortable at that moment, but he made do with a makeshift den he carved out of the ground between two massive shrubs. Finding the best position to sleep in proved a bothersome task. Was he supposed to lie all the way down on his side or huddle his tiger beneath him and sleep with his anthro side upright? A few minutes of squirming in place passed before he had to remind himself not to think about it. Muscle memory. Muscle memory. Soon he was slowly lowering himself down on his side, letting his upper portion lay on the ground. He huddled his legs and folded his paws beneath his head. He closed his eyes, tried not to think about his cabin, and fell asleep shortly after.

He got up at the crack of dawn, shaking his fur of the morning dew that had beaded everywhere. The smells of nature were heavier and more blended in with the humidity. Hopefully it wouldn't prevent him from realizing when he was wandering out of his territory and into someone else's. He didn't bump into any other tigers as he continued his journey, fortunately, but he did encounter something else. Bringing him to an abrupt stop was the sight of a half dozen deer taking a drink from the creek. They stood collected at the opposite bank about 100 yards away, just under the protective shade of a nearby tree. Three drank at a time while the others huddled around behind them to keep watch for predators.

Jared was one such predator. That much was clear when his instincts flared up, urging him to sulk into the cover of a nearby tree, head hunched low. He sniffed the air and caught the faintest fragment of the deer's scent. A pang of hunger rumbled in his gut. His mouth was starting to water and his fur stood on ends. Crap. Am I really gonna do this? Is this how I get my food? He looked at his hiding position. He felt totally concealed, like he was in a perfect position to watch and approach the deer's position. It had been achieved with the most nonchalant of actions, like opening a door or sitting in a chair.

It made sense that he had to hunt to survive, but to do it now seemed like a bad idea. The fact that he could probably grab one of those deer and kill it while relying entirely on muscle memory disturbed him. He'd never gone hunting before. The weight of a gun in his hands was unfamiliar. To kill a deer with his bare claws and to feel it die was not an experience he was willing to go through, no matter how hungry he got.

He left his hiding spot and wandered up to the bank. Instantly one of the deer spotted him, and all five other heads snapped to look at him. His casual march towards them did not stop, and all six deer skedaddled with a graceful launch into the forest. Their darkened forms hopped along the trees until one by one he couldn't see them anymore. The predator side of him expressed disappointment while the Jared side- the real side -was proud of himself.

The journey down the creek stopped when the smell of his territory hit a wall. It was replaced rather suddenly by a different smell, altogether subtle but enough to ignite every warning flare in his mind. He wisely turned around and walked the other way. Part of him was disappointed that he couldn't reach the river, but there was much to compensate for that in the other direction. With miles of forest ahead of him, he set off to explore it. It took a few nights, each one marking a day when he fought the instinct to kill, but he made it to the end of his territory. He guessed correctly that he could rely on instinct to bring him back to his cabin.

Something was waiting there for him.

He stepped inside to find a mahogany armoire standing against the wall opposite him, right next to his "mattress". It was tall, reaching just below the bottom part of the ceiling. The maroon paneled doors stared back at him with their two cast iron knobs, wondering if he would come in and discover what was inside. Once recovered from his initial shock, Jared approached the armoire and opened it very slowly. Hanging from the rack were two very familiar outfits. On the left was the skunk onesie Jared had purchased from Get It Here. Next to it was the wolverine onesie he'd gotten in the mail two weeks ago. At the bottom of the armoire was a folded note. Jared picked it up, unfolded it, and started to read.

Dear Jasmine,

Or are you Jared again? Oh, I'll probably ever know. I hope you know it's random what sex you become. I'm not throwing different ones at you all willy-nilly for my own amusement, though I'll never get tired of finding fun and unique creatures to become. How was being a tiger? Not too lonely, I hope. Maybe you were able to take down some creatures. Not sure if I'd be able to.

You probably expected a new outfit. I assure you that I've sent them, but you won't find them here. You have the option to return to the skunk and wolverine worlds if you pleased, though I think you'll be much more satisfied with the two I've placed in this world. You read that correctly. Two. They're out there for you to find. They aren't far, but they aren't close either. Now that you're a brave tiger I think you can make the journey. As always, it's your prerogative.

Sincerely,

Leland Gaunt