FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I won't even hazard to assume it's up to par with some of the work I've seen on the site. The characters are still in need of a lot of development, and the concept of introducing an entirely new and halfway believable furry world is a task I never thought would be as daunting as it has been. Between drawing up maps, making functional blueprints of buildings, and trying to write from a consistent point of view I have developed a great respect for people who manage far more with far less time. All I can do is be thankful that I continue to have what I need to be able to play with the characters, and that when my time comes to go downrange that I can manage to continue posting periodic updates and introduce new storylines.

I'm not personally writing this for erotic purposes, though there are erotic moments; this is purely an exercise to create a robust believable world and to see what all might happen in it. To that extent I'm more than glad to share the world I'm making with anyone who wants to help flesh it out more. While so far I've only unearthed revealed a small portion, there is a much larger world beneath it and I am more than happy to share my notes with anyone who wants in on it.

If reading about gay furry men getting hot and steamy gets you squicked or arrested, go away. Come on, if furfags squick you, get out now. This is your last warning. Then again, if that's your thing enjoy the story.

*Begin Joel the first*

His first instinct on realizing he was still alive was to grab for his weapon, which reassured him with the cold feel of metal against his right palm. His second instinct was to make sure he was still in one piece. The effort required to pull off his right glove and feel for every appendage was a daunting one, as every inch of him seemed to grind like broken glass. Despite the pain, he managed to confirm ten fingers, two feet, and no obvious broken bones.

Hesitantly he opened his eyes; When he managed to force the lids back he was rewarded with the feeling that they had been filled with salt for just long enough to snap them shut again. His world was filled with silence that was penetrated only by a high pitched whine. As the purity of the tone diminished to the muffled sound of a vehicle rolling over pavement he knew at least one of his eardrums was still intact.

Gathering his resolve, he again forced his eyes open and pushed himself past the stinging pain. He could see; the world was a slowly resolving blur, but he could see. He was on his back, leaning lightly up against his assault pack. The angle afforded him a fuzzy view of what was a single light, rather than the flood lamps and flares had expected to see. Another blurred shape in front of him looked like some sort of structure. Joel squinted his eyes to see not a bunker, not a mud hut, not a plaster building but a house. He could scarcely believe his eyes when the blurry light resolved just enough to make out a street lamp.

In his gut, there was a grinding feeling that Joel could have compared to crushed glass, and getting up took all the willpower he had. As he unslung his rifle, he gripped the front sight post. He had always been taught to never use his weapon as a cane, but what other option did he have? Hobbling to the concrete patio behind the house took what felt like an agonizing hour.

'Where is this... Am I dreaming?' he asked himself.

With an agonizing flare of pain, Joel managed to lean himself against the frame of the house to tap on the glass door. Would anyone wake up? 'Please, be home' Joel prayed to a nameless god he had never before believed in. Through the ringing in his ears, the creak of boards and the click of a lock told him his silent prayer was answered. His hopes began to raise further as the door slid open to reveal a shadowy figure partially obscured both by Joel's inability to focus, and the fact that he was profiled as the light in the house was clicked on.

"Please..." Joel gasped. Speaking hurt more than he thought it would, as if he had tried to breathe in a sandstorm. As he stood in the doorway, Joel could feel what he knew to be the pressing shroud of unconsciousness creeping up on him and as the haze took him, he fell into the arms of the form before him.

***

When he woke up again, the roaring in his ears and the sting in his eyes was almost gone. The pill pack from his medical pouch was laying next to him empty. The lack of pain in his extremities told him he had somehow been made to swallow the contents, but that didn't help the pain in his lungs or the ache he knew was probably some manner of internal bleeding. For that matter where was his IBAS? Where was his weapon?

Panic started to set in again as he looked down at himself only to notice that his uniform was gone, replaced with khaki pants and a clean shirt. Anxiety began to fill the world like a flash flood until he noticed his gear laying in the corner of the room near the bed along with his weapon. With a flare of pain, he managed to push himself out of the soft bed and limp over to his gear to index his equipment.

The ammo was gone. Three hundred AP rounds, four frag grenades, two flash bangs, and his KA-Bar all gone along with one PSP and a Nintendo DS. To his surprise, though, everything else remained. Whoever found him didn't trust him. 'Situational awareness,' he thought to himself, and took an index on his surroundings.

On further examination, the whole room seemed like it could have been any American bedroom, except for the fact nothing he saw was written in English; every piece of text he could find was in a language that looked like a cross between Chinese and Greek. 'What country is this?' his mental question came. 'It's not Arabic, Chinese, Farsee, Korean, Japanese or Hebrew,' he processed.

The expensive looking lamp on the nightstand next to the bed caught his eye, to let his gaze then travel to the clock. It had to be a clock, but the numbers that blinked on it were none that he could recognize. There was a dresser in the corner between the wall with the door, and the open sliding-door closet opposite the bed. The window was positioned across from the door, and looked out on the yard. From the window, Joel could see just barely see a smaller swimming pool that extended around the corner of the house, and on the lawn there was a yard table set up next to a garden. He was on the first and only floor of the house, though, so only the tops of other houses were visible beyond the tall wooden fence. Next to the window there was a desk with a computer on it. It looked like a computer anyway, but the keyboard was again printed with the same indecipherable letters. As he looked at the computer, he heard what he knew was the creak of a door.

As he spun around, he saw... something. It couldn't be real; dogs didn't walk on two legs, and they didn't carry paper bags or wear clothes. He had seen similar things in cartoons and anime, but to see something real? As he looked in the thing's eyes, though, he saw fear reflected in them. It's tail thrashed wildly as it backed slowly away. Part of him wanted to attack the thing, but his training wouldn't LET him assault anything without positive ID on a threat.

"Vrthe-lushk-arth," the thing said in a quiet but raspy voice, leaving Joel speechless. Dogs didn't talk either.

"Relg-korsh-b-berk." Despite the harsh nature of the voice itself, it sounded like it was trying to be calm.

"S-stay back..." Joel readied himself for an escalation of force. He entered a grappling stance, but as he adjusted his weight pain flared in his guts. Even standing was suddenly difficult, and he could tell something was bleeding inside again.

Pain flared in Joel's gut, forcing him to the ground. As he doubled over the creature began to panic and fished out what was looked like an injection gun from it's brown paper bag. Slowly and deliberately, the thing approached him. When he was within arms-length the canine grabbed Joel's arm and plugged the inside of his elbow with the multi-needled end of the device.

The gun made a hissing sound as it worked, and finally a pop as the array of needles pulled out and up into the gun. Fire shot up through his veins, and his lungs burned. In the haze and confusion Joel managed to pull away from the creature.

Slow seconds passed and as they did weakness overtook Joel's damaged frame. Minutes passed, and the sensation dulled to a tingling that rooted itself in his brain and even thinking started to burn. What felt like an hour passed, and Joel opened his eyes to realize that the pain was gone... all of it.

"What did you do to me?" Joel hollered. Something was different, but he couldn't put a finger ont it. He looked at the creature, and saw what he could now clearly identify as nervousness on it's face.

"I... Well, I think I just saved your life." The thing said in the same gruff voice as before. It took a while for him to register the fact that he could now understand what the thing was saying.

"What the fuck..." Joel said to himself as he grabbed the sides of his head. A realization dawned on him that it wasn't that the creature was speaking in english, but rather that he was now speaking and even thinking in IT'S language.

"You can understand me now, right? That's what I just gave you. Aside from rearranging half your brain, it should have fixed up a good deal of the internal damage too. If you wanted to THANK me for saving your life, you could start by telling me your name. By the way, I'm Mark." At least it was civil, and the pain really was gone for the most part.

"Well, First I want to know where this is and why I'm having a conversation with a talking dog... This has to be some sort of dream."

"Where? My house, thank you very much and I'm NOT a dog, I'm a wolf. You act as like you haven't seen another furry before. I think the real question is what are YOU? I've never seen a furry before without... well... fur. You look like you got fucked up by some sort of botched military experiment, or some nasty strain of DGRS." As Joel looked at the thing he realized it did look rather more like a wolf than a dog. Something in the back of his head told him that perhaps even the idea of "dog" didn't even fit in with "canine" anymore, but he couldn't rightly put a finger on why.

"Uh, I'm 'HUMAN'. If you aren't some sort of fucked up delusion, then that means I'm certainly not in 'IRAQ' anymore..."

"Ok then, maybe you can tell me where 'IRAQ' is. I've never even HEARD the name 'Hooman' before." It sounded a little irritated as it pointed to what Joel had thought was just a poster of some sort. As he looked at it, he realized it was a map complete with countries and names. The top was in the same script as everything else, but he knew now that it said "Rowana". Another nail struck home

"I'm Joel... 'HUMAN' is what I am, and That's not the world. This, THIS is the world..." Joel said as he maneuvered over to his assault pack, from which he produced a copy of a military manual on map reading and land navigation. Rifling through the pages, he located a suitable map of Earth. Even looking at the text felt odd. He could recognize the text, but he could no longer read it.

The wolf was speechless. he looked up at Joel, shock and surprise filling his expression.

"I'm in the military, or at least I was... I was on a guard detail, and to make a long story short, there was an attack. Something went wrong with... Well, with the thing I was guarding. I woke up here; If this is the afterlife, then God has one sadistic sense of humor..."

"Well I'm pretty sure it isn't the afterlife, but if you hadn't have woken up I think you would have made it there all the same. I'm afraid if we don't do something to fix that appearance of yours, you'll make it there anyway. Fortunately I have something that might help you fit in a bit more provided it works."

"What do you mean something to help me fit in... You're the freak here. I suppose next you're going to tell me you're going to turn me into a 1 and a half meter tall talking cat..."

"Uh... Yes. I have no clue how you even know what a cat IS, but..."

Joel tried to say something but couldn't. He knew it was an utterly absurd thought, but so was the idea that the strange black thing that swallowed eight mortars and one US soldier was some sort of gateway into another world.

"I inject this tube into your arm. It dopes you up while a bunch of tiny little machines and viruses rebuild your body. It's insanely illegal, but that's the way everything from the Drakon Crater is."

Joel continued to remain speechless for a few minutes that stretched out like days before getting a grasp on himself again. "Now I know I'm crazy..." Joel stated flatly.

"Lets just say it's something someone like me would see fit to have. I already have a new identity set up for that cat too, but it's either watch you die or let you use it instead." The wolf explained.

"... watch me die?" The idea of death hung on Joel. While it wasn't something he was particularly afraid of as a soldier, it wasn't something he was overly eager to run towards either.

"Being caught by the government and used as a test subject until they torture, interrogate, and eventually kill you. If you're from a world remotely like this one, you'll know all about that kind of thing. You'll probably want to burn or destroy that map book and the other books you have in that pack of yours, too. I don't want to think what someone would do seeing all that."

Joel looked at the tube mounted on the injection gun. He had never been put to such a drastic decision before; While part of him wanted to just dismiss it as a dream, another part knew that it all was far too real. He looked at the injector and considered his options: either it was real, and it felt too real to be anything but... or it was a hallucination. If it was real, he would already be considered a deserter or AWOL. The only thing that was waiting back home for him in that case was a military execution, assuming that the technology to send him home even existed in the first place. If it was somehow a delusion, then he would wake up in the real world surrounded by his battle buddies looking perfectly normal.

"I feel like Alice jumping down the rabbit hole," He said with a delirious laugh and jammed the thing against the crook of his elbow. He took a slow breath, pushed it out, and squeezed the trigger.

With a hiss, the same burning sensation as before shot itself down his arm. It started to feel like he really WAS in a dream. The wolf helped him up and gently led him over to the bed, where he lost his balance and collapsed.

'Whatever was in that cylinder is some awesome stuff', he thought to himself... Or did he say it out loud? Who cared.... Reality was out the window as his ears began to swim up to the top of his head and his red hair fell out, to be replaced by grey fur that started sprouting on his arms and legs, and anywhere else he could think of. Oh his face, he felt like he had to sneeze; as he did, his nose inflated like a balloon, pushing out and then shriveling up on the end as if an invisible stopper had been let out. He couldn't tell if it was the drugs, or the process itself, but he knew he certainly felt like new muscles were growing, old ones were shriveling, and he had the sensation that his internal organs were playing a sadistic game of Twister inside of him. On his ass, it felt like he was shitting out his spine, or maybe just growing a new one as a bony lump began to snake it's way underneath him. As the growth burst out from underneath him, it revealed itself as long grey tail. On his front, too, things were moving and shaking; Was his dick really pulling up inside him? Were his balls really moving on their own? His vision blurred, and resolved into what seemed too-clear perception of a drugged mind, and sounds sharpened to where he could hear a pin drop. In addition to sight and sound, new smells also permeated the air, and he wondered if it was really new, or just something that had always been there. It was the best trip he'd ever had, but then what else could he expect from such a dream...

Abruptly the changing stopped. He felt woozy, but his head was already clearing. Joel looked over at Mark, who had been watching intently the whole time. "Wow..." was the only thing that came to mind. Hearing himself say it, he realized even his voice had drastically changed.

"Wow indeed..." The wolf echoed, looking down Joel's new body."I've always wanted to try that. You've GOT to see yourself." With a hop in his step, the wolf moved over to the closet door and slid the doors apart to reveal a full length mirror.

The fist few steps Joel took were difficult... Something was wrong with his balance. He looked down to notice his... Feet? Paws? ('Foot-paws' he thought to himself, confirming that a part of him already knew). Rather than walking flat on his feet he was now walking on his toes and managing his balance with the grey tail that now extended behind him. In the act of walking to the mirror, his walking normalized, and by the time he got there he no longer felt awkward at all.

Joel could hardly believe what he saw when he stood up and looked at himself. In the mirror, he no longer saw himself in the glass but rather a sleek feline form. His ears really had moved up on his head, and were now perky triangles. After a few seconds effort, he figured out how to even make them move. His face itself had elongated into a sleek muzzle. The only things that remained from his old face were the deep hazel-green eyes, which stood out like a green fire against the grey of his new-found fur.

On opening his mouth, the flat row of teeth that he had before had elongated into a perfectly formed set of pointed fangs, and his tongue had flattened out considerably, explaining why his voice sounded so different.

When he looked at his hands, he discovered that his fingerprints were gone, only to be replaced by what seemed like leathery pads that popped out at the flat spots between the joints. At the fingertips where his fingernails once were, shiny little black points emerged. After another few seconds of experimentation, he managed to get them to reveal themselves as shiny black half-inch claws.

"You look like you've never seen claws before... If you know what's good for you, you won't bring them out unless you're ready to fight. You'll probably want to shorten them too, or they won't go in all the way and they'll end up snagging on shit." Joel made a mental note, and laughed uncomfortably. It was a dream, so what difference did it make? He picked up a steel rat-tail file that he saw sitting conveniently on the dresser next to the closet. The wolf nodded to him, and Joel pushed out the claws again and started working idly on the points as he looked over the rest of himself

"I don't suppose you have any extra shoes or anything I can borrow?" Joel asked the wolf, realizing his combat boots wouldn't fit his new feet.

"To be honest I don't think mine would fit you. Besides, Nobody really wears them 'cept when it's cold out or when they really need to. I'm just glad you're close enough to my size that my clothes fit you. That uniform you were in last night didn't even have a hole for a tail..." The thought hadn't occurred to Joel, about shoes OR his tail. He reached behind him to find that his tail had pushed out through a hole in the back of the pants he had been wearing as it had started growing. On the top of the vertical slit where the belt would come around, there was a strap that pulled over and buttoned in to secure the khakis in place. As for shoes, it DID make a bit of sense; He could barely even feel the floor through the thick leathery pads on his feet.

"I see..." Joel said, and thought about how he would miss his combat boots. "Tell me this: If you're not a hallucination why are you helping me?"

"I'm a medical student studying to become a doctor. Someone shows up on at my back door coughing up blood, the last thing I'm going to do is turn 'em away. A real fine doctor I am if I just let someone expire at my back door." the wolf stated as he turned to the dresser. Joel had his doubts that that was entirely the real reason, but kept silent as the wolf pulled out the bottom drawer of the dresser. After some fiddling with the mechanism that held the drawer into the rails, the wolf managed to free the wooden box from the frame to reveal a flat wooden box that had been reinforced with steel bands and edging. From around his neck the wolf produced a dull grey key on a cord lanyard and With care inserted it in the lock. With a click, he opened the box to reveal a papery card and various other documents. "Speaking of lives, say hello to yourself."

"What do you mean?"

In response, the wolf produced the card and offered it to Joel. "As I said, I had an identity all set up for the day I might have needed to become someone else. This is all the information that you need to take it instead. That card is your Social Welfare Card. You should feel really lucky. Jolan should shorten to Joel pretty easily." Joel read the card and it identified him now as one Jolan Shortclaw, accompanied by a 12 digit string of numbers and a birthdate of 10-23-1394. As he looked at the date, he could identify it as December 10th, 1394 AOK, and that there were only ten 35-day-long months in a year. Whatever had been in the first tube, he came to the realization that it did a lot more than just change his language.

"Now hand me that card one more time," Mark requested. Once the card was back in his hand, he put it back and locked it into the box.

Fortunately for you, you lucked out on that name."

"You still haven't given me a good reason as to why anyone would need something like this?

"Well, lets just say we both have secrets that could cause us problems at this point. Bad things would happen if anyone found out too much about my life same as yours." The wolf explained. Confusion crept across Joel's face at what the wolf might have meant.

"Bad things?" Joel asked, as he poured over the various reasons people in his own world committed violence. Religion, bigotry, gang affiliation, and race all came to mind. The thought scared him when he realized that in a world with distinctly different species, there was a whole new potential for differences to be turned into yet another reason for intelligent creatures to kill each other. As the wolf's silence told Joel the question wasn't about to be answered.

"Ok, then... I don't suppose you could show me to where my other things are? Some of that stuff is really dangerous to just have sitting around."

"Well, I figured as much. you showed up in my yard with enough munitions to level half a city block. I put most of it in the gunsafe in the garage."

"Probably a good idea... Given that I'm not going home any time soon, I think it would probably be a good idea to destroy it."

For the first time since they had met, the wolf was the speechless one for the next few moments.

"Um... How about I just give you the tour for now?"

"Sounds good."

The wolf didn't hesitate to lead him out of the room and show Joel around his home. From what the soldier could tell, it was a fairly large house, with another bedroom on the same hall as Mark's. As the wolf led him out, he could see there was a full bathroom at the far end of the hallway to the right, and a smaller one at the near end, where the hall hit a right angle turn. When they walked around the corner, Joel looked right to see a large kitchen with an island and a large refrigerator and dining area beyond. On his left there was a door that opened into what appeared to be a laundry area and along the wall beyond that there was a door that apparently led outside. Off to his front, he could see that there was a railed off stairway that led forward and down to a basement floor. To the right of the stairway there was a spacious living room with a fireplace. Above the fireplace where the chimney would have been, there was an entertainment system that was flanked by massive cabinets. To the left of the entertainment system was a pair of doors, one on the same wall and one on the left wall. On the wall opposite the stairwell was a sliding glass door that led out onto a patio that must have been where he came in the night before; Just seeing it reinforced the idea that maybe everything was too real to dismiss as delusion.

"I don't know if you realize how bad you were last night," The wolf said. "Whatever was in those pills you had on you was the only thing that pulled you through long enough to wake up, and if you hadn't you would probably be dead." As he talked, Mark walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a pair of glass bottles with green-brown liquid in them. From the bright label, Joel could tell it was some sort of soda.

"Speaking of, drink some of this. You need to get some sugar in you." Mark said as he tossed a bottle up through a window between the kitchen and the living room, presumably to allow whoever was in the kitchen to watch the television. Joel caught the bottle and started working on the cap.

"What do you mean?"

"You got shot up with a shit-ton of tiny machines and virii that completely altered your body and brain. They don't just run on hope and star sprinkles, and I reckon they probably ended up burning every last ounce of fat off of you." The thought still was amazing to Joel. Technology like that was a pipe dream on Earth.

"I don't suppose you could give me another miracle, like getting this cap off," Joel quipped as the cap proved more a challenge than he was up to conquering at the moment.

"Try turning it the other way, soldier boy." Joel took the wolf's advice and with a hiss, the soda bottle opened to assault his nose with a combination of fruity smells. On top of the other smells was something something he could only describe as 'happy'.

"What is this?" he asked as he sniffing again at the opening in the bottle cautiously.

"Water mixed with Caffeine, Sugar, and a bunch of other stuff that will put you in an early grave. Just drink it." the wolf said plainly.

Joel put the bottle to his lips and took a swig and discovered it tasted almost exactly how it smelled, sans the 'happy'. He was glad enough with the taste to chug half the bottle before stopping for breath. Before he could manage a second swig, an impossibly high pitched but somehow quiet tone rang in the air. The wolf pulled something out of his pocket, pushed a button on the surface, and pressed it to his ear. When the wolf began to talk into it, Joel realized he was looking at a cellphone.

"Hey, Tony! What's up? Yeah, I know I'm late. An unexpected friend dropped by. No, I don't think he'd mind. Great, see you in 15." With a beep, Mark pulled the phone away from his ear and stuffed it back in a pocket.

"What was that about?"

"A Cellphone."

"I know that. We have them where I come from too. I meant what you were talking about."

"Oh, just a friend of mine. I met him working at the bar I tend on weekends, but he's a med school student like me. I usually hang out with him on weekends. Lets just say me and him have a lot in common."

"Cool enough. Hey, I don't suppose you could tell me how to turn the television on? I'm assuming that's what the big screen is."

"There should be a controller for it out there somewhere. It's grey with black buttons. I assume you know what I'm talking about?" The wolf said as he came into the living room to take a seat on a chair to Joel's right.

"Yeah, I think I found it," Joel responded, as he chastised himself for not recognizing the controller for what it was earlier. With a glance, he quickly identified what were probably channel buttons and a power button. With a single press, the screen over the fireplace blinked to life to show the face of what looked like a female ferret, or perhaps a weasel.

"... and in the Reltan region, fighting broke out again over difficulties between bengals and panthers. Tensions run high as the two factions are at war again over tribal herd lands. Global peace talks are underway between the two parties, though, and the Global Republic ambassadors of the two groups recognize a need to end the fighting..." the voice said, before Joel could change the channel. He had suspected as much, and realized that this world had a lot more in common with his own than he might like to admit. With the push of a button, the screen changed to what was some sort of televangelism; In the center of the screen there was what looked to be an obese bear in robes with a backdrop of pillars and stained glass.

"And so says our mighty creator Hall that we must not suffer the drakon to live in this world. There are many paths that lead to the damnation sewn by these beasts of the underworld: Drugs, Unnatural Sciences, Self-Mutilation, Drakonic Music, and worst of all Unnatural love! We must seek to stomp out these..." When he couldn't stand any more of the banter, Joel flipped the channel again. The screen showed what was another news program, this time it was hosted by a feline Joel thought looked vaguely like a lynx.

"In the small town of Greenstem, citizens mourned the death of community pillar Stephen Tenclaw. Found hung in his home by his buisness partner, The aging badger had been in charge of the town's thriving whitewater rafting center for over 50 years. Despite allegations from conservatives of 'unnatural love' with his partner Alex Felsworth, he managed to donate over one million dollars to local schools and hospitals. Police say that the cause of death was suicide, but will not disclose any details from the scene..." On the screen, they showed a picture that indeed resembled a badger. As the screen flickered, a shrill tone not unlike the cellphone pierced the air and with the tone the television blinked itself off. On hearing the high-pitched whistle, Mark made a beeline towards the front door.

As the wolf moved to the door, the tone sounded again impatiently.

"Hold on! I'm coming!" Mark shouted as he arrived at the door. With the click of a lock, the door creaked open and a grey feline with white chestfur and brown-grey spots walked in. It's tail was also spotted grey with a flash of white at the end. From what Joel could tell, it reminded him of a snow leopard and he wondered just how many EARTH species existed as walking, talking 'furries' on Rowana. On his back, the leopard wore a green canvas bag that matched his khakis and went well with his white t-shirt.

"Hey, so this must be the reason you missed work today," the leopard said with a voice less harsh than Mark's. As he talked, Joel noticed the green eyes probing his body. Joel could have sworn he almost heard the other feline purr, but it stopped as quck as it started and he would never know for sure. Hearing the feline talk, the idea dawned on him what the cat was insinuating. While his battle buddies in the military always made lots of jokes and fake come-ons, this was the first time Joel had ever actually been sized up by another male. Thinking about the idea, he felt both a little disgusted and a little flattered. As he sat considering the idea, he admitted to himself there would be worse fates in the world than ending up in bed with a wolf the likes of Mark; Ending up in bed with his last ex-girlfriend for example.

"arf... It isn't like that, I swear," The wolf said, ears folding back in embarrassment. "Don't we have some studying to do?"

"Aye, that we do. What can I say? Finals suck. By the way, I'm Tony." the leopard said as he walked over to sit down at a chair in the dining area. From his backpack, the leopard produced several large books and a notebook and laid them out on the table.

"So are you taking classes at the university too? I have yet to have seen you around campus, but then again it's a pretty big place." The leopard's question was a good one, and for the first time he was tasked with giving life to the personality that was Jolan Shortclaw. Luckily, the military had been good for teaching him how to bluff his way past the truth.

"Actually I came to apply for the next cycle. Me and Mark go back to elementary school, but to make a long story short I lost touch with him, and just recently found out he was still here at his parent's old house. I was in a tight place, so Mark offered to let me stay with him. It sucked to hear about his parents, though. By the way, my name's Jolan but I prefer Joel."

"Yeah, but you could have given me a bit more warning than showing up at my door at 3 in the morning." Mark jibed. While there was a small serious tinge to his voice, he didn't seem put off by it much. "On that note, you should probably try to get some sleep. Me and Tony do have to get SOME studying in tonight. We'll be sure to wake you up if anything more interesting than memorizing facts about michtocondria happens."

"Fair enough..." As Joel thought about it, he was feeling more and more tired. Looking out the window, the sun had already started to drop below the horizon and what he assumed was a clock was blinking 1545. While he couldn't explain it, it seemed almost intuitive to him that it was a 20 hour clock. He couldn't say how he knew, but he did. "Which room should I use?" Joel asked the wolf.

"Feel free to crash in the room next to mine," came the response. Joel nodded a silent agreement, and pushed himself up out of the chair. With a yawn as he walked back down the hallway they had come from earlier, passed by Mark's room to take the second right. He found himself in a space laid out mostly like Mark's had been, but more empty. There was something strange about how the room looked, but he was really too tired to care. With a sigh, he fell back on top of the covers and passed out with the knowledge that in a moment he would probably wake up in an infirmary.

***

When he woke up, Joel had expected to see bright lights and a tent ceiling. He expected that he would be in some measure of euphoria induced by morphine, and he expected most of all to wake up in an uncomfortable cot. What Joel saw when he opened his eyes was none of these things, but rather he woke to see an unlit light fixture set in plaster. In his gut, he felt the unmistakable pangs of hunger, and an obnoxious piss-boner pressed against the front of his underwear.

Despite the hunger, took a few attempts to get out of the bed simply because of the fact it was more comfortable any he had slept in for over a year. Still, he had gotten out of bed at 4:00 AM every day for 4 months in IET, and he would be damned if his morale could be defeated by a mattress. With resolution, he forced himself up and onto his feet.

As he stood up and looked out the window, the darkness told him that it was still some time durring the night, and a clock on the nightstand told him that it was 0023. As he looked around the room, it seemed strange again, and it took a few moments to figure out why. As he thought about the enigma, he realized that the blinds were closed, the lights were off, and the clock was unlit; the entire room was pitch black, but he could still make out his surroundings. With ease, the feline made it to the door, and opened it with narry a sound.

Joel padded softly down the carpeted floor of the hallway. As he listened to the conversation from the other room, he could tell that both Joel and Tony were still busy studying, or at least doing something. He would have stopped to listen further to what they were talking about, but a twisting hunger in his gut forced him to continue mission around the corner and into the kitchen.

As he first opened the refrigerator, Joel was overwhelmed by what he saw; While he had some idea what he was looking at, he didn't know what all to make of most of it. Looking into the fridge, he instantly recognized a bottle feeder filled with the same soda that he had before, along with a few other brands and flavours. On the shelf above the bottles were several anonymous food containers, a bottle of something that may have been juice, and various things that he couldn't identify.

"Need some help there?" Mark asked, surprising Joel a bit as he looked at the clutter. From the look of the bottles on the table as Joel looked back, it looked like the two of them had stopped studying a while ago and started drinking instead.

"Yeah. I'm hungry as hell. Got anything that doesn't take cooking?" Joel suggested. He wasn't in the mood to get introduced to whatever Rowana boasted for exotic food poisoning quiet yet.

"Check the cabinet in there corner. The one by the sink. No, the Other side." As Joel managed to follow the instructions, he discovered several bags of what were labeled as Bacon Chips. Curious, he picked the one that was already open and popped a few of the reddish chips into his mouth. The label didn't lie; it really was a bacon flavoured chip of some sort, and it didn't taste bad at all.

"Were you guys up all night?" Joel asked, looking at the wolf. The whites around those golden irises were both slightly bloodshot, and the feeling of 'tired' seemed to radiate out from Mark in waves. "You should really get some sleep."

"Meh, tests arn't till...." groggily, the wolf tried to focus on a clock that hung on the wall behind the table and then continued "...tomorrow. We were just about to play StarSeige. For shots even. You interested?" Mark offered as he went to the freezer to pull out a bottle of what looked like a dark brown whiskey. For Joel it had been months since the last time he had a drink, and given the situation, he knew he could probably use a good drink or seven.

"Hell, why not. What's the game involve?"

"Haven't you ever played StarSeige before? What barn were you raised in?" The other cat said in disbelief. "Well, I suppose the idea of a newbie to trash might be fun, I just hope you enjoy getting drunk. You're old enough to drink, right?"

"What are you talking about, cat? You're a year short of being legal yourself! But I love ya anyway. But yeah, he's 20." Joel couldn't help but chuckle at the thought; the figure took a full four years off of him assuming that a Rowanan year was about the same as an Earth year. He knew he had always looked a few years younger than he actually was, and part of him wondered if that had carried over; the disbelief on the snow leopard's face confirmed that it had.

"Well, Lets just say my parents gave me a very sheltered life after they pulled me out of school. I don't suppose you could give me a little primer on it?" The lie was good enough to stop further questions from the leopard, and as the three made the short trip from dining area to living room and set up the game, Mark explained the general idea.

From what Joel could pick up from the wolf, the game itself was something of a realtime strategy set-up. Each side built bases, gathered resources, and trained units. Each side got a basic army that gained a fixed number of troops each turn. When a player got so many kills, they were given points that they could spend together with the resources they gathered to buy bigger special units that would support the main army and help destroy the enemy bases faster. Around each player's main base, there were smaller settlements which the other players could sack and destroy to gain kills for purchases and reduce the resource income. Beyond providing fodder for kills, it also forced each team to move their armies away from their base of operations and into harm's way to defend their holdings. The drinking rules of the game were far simpler: Whenever a settlement got razed, the player in control of that settlement had to drink.

While Joel had accepted that he would be getting his ass kicked the first game, he did remarkably better than he thought he would and managed to make both Mark and Tony drink twice before they teamed up and wiped him out, making him take six shots of something that tasted like a mixture of rubbing alcohol and blood: four settlements and two for his base.

After Joel had been wiped off the map, The leopard and the wolf broke their temporary alliance and went after each other. While they had been equally balanced Tony managed to get the upper hand with a flanking maneuver. As he and started to roll over Mark's settlements, the wolf poured himself two drinks and took the loss in stride. As the snow leopard pressed his attack Mark bided his time and let his army recharge, spending as much kill points and resources as he had in order to bolster himself against the attack; When the leopard had reached his base, Tony found himself almost overwhelmed with the sheer number of defenders and lost his momentum quickly. Having used all his troops to press what he thought would be a victory attack, he found found the wolf's counterattack too powerful to withstand and even before the retaliation force reached his base he had already started taking his last four shots. By the time the last building exploded on the screen, Joel was already feeling a buzz and wondered if a second game was really a good idea.

"You sure you're a newbie at this, guy?" the snow leopard asked, already looking as if he had several drinks too many.

"Of course, you beat me didn't you? Just give me chance though and I'll kick yer ass every time, Hooah?" Joel said, the alcohol already giving him a strong buzz and promising a lot more. Whatever was in that stuff, Joel had no doubt it would be kicking his ass after almost 6 months of sobriety in Iraq.

"what's 'Hooah'?" The leopard asked curiously. As Joel heard him say it, he realized that it was one of the few English words that had survived the language changing process. The one word had about a hundred different uses depending on the situation and likely had no real equivalent in the new language.

"I'm juss askin if yer trackin what I'm saying is all," Joel said, vaguely aware of his slurring. The idea took him by surprise, as he didn't think he would be that far gone so soon. Being a soldier, he had gotten drunk more times than he could count, but always stopped before he reached his limit. This time, though, he didn't have a clear idea of where that limit was; As fast as the alcohol was kicking in, he had the sneaking suspicion that he had passed it about three shots ago.

"Yeah, I'm trackin..." the leopard asked as he got up and moved to the fridge. When he returned, he was carrying three cans of something that Joel couldn't identify. The leopard set one in front of both Joel and Mark on the couch before laying back in an easy chair, his long tail draped over the side.

Not wanting to look a fool, Joel popped his can open and took a swig to find it something vaguely reminiscent of beer. Knowing he was already feeling drunk, he decided to take the can slow and steady rather than risk puking quite yet. Next to him, it was obvious that either the wolf was more of a lightweight than even himself, or that Mark had already started considerably drunk; slowly mark slid sideways to be resting his bodyweight against Joel's feline frame.

"Ya'know I never asked ya if ya had a girl back where ya came from..." Mark posed, as he leaned against Joel's shoulder.

"Yeah, but I guess I don't anymore, do I? I'd been trying to find a way to leave the bitch for months, but I guess that ain't an issue now," Joel said with a snicker.

"So then what would you say if I said *I* thought you were cute?" the wolf posed, as he nuzzled Joel in the shoulder. Joel felt a little dirty, but the warm muzzle of the wolf pressed up against his neck sent a thrill down his spine. He wasn't sure if it was just the alcohol, the 8 year-long string of failed and unsatisfying relationships prior or perhaps even the fact he hadn't had close intimate contact with anyone for the last several months, but feeling the canine against him felt damn good. There weren't any battle buddies around to impress, no small town high school rumors to put down, no parents to disappoint anymore and there was no more job to lose; for the first time in a long time Joel felt something akin to freedom. With a mental shrug, he wrapped his arm around the canine and pulled him close. As the canine turned to face him, Joel looked into the golden eyes and pushed past his dying inhibitions. No longer caring about the consequences or the implications of the act, he pressed his muzzle against the wolf's.

With the mental protests of his superego effectively drowned out by the alcohol, he relaxed his muzzle to let his long flattened tongue make it's way into the canine's open maw. Once there, the feeling of pointed teeth rubbing against it gently and another flat tongue pressing and sucking was something akin to bliss. As he let himself be lost in the feeling, he slid his other paw around the wolf's body and gripped firmly against his back. It didn't take long for the wolf to respond to the gesture, and before he could realize it the wolf had already pulled one of his own soft-furred arms around his midsection and another paw had found it's way to his crotch. As it did, a spark of surprise powered by his faltering inhibitions forced him to pull away... Or maybe it was just a lack of breath; At that point Joel couldn't really tell.

"I can't..." He said as he gasped for breath. As he fought for air, he again found himself sinking into the deep pair of golden pools that were Mark's eyes and the faltering thing that was Joel's superego was smashed against the rocks of the sea that was his intoxication. Confusion dawned on the Mark's eyes at the apparent contradiction as Joel once more pressed his muzzle forward to initiate a second kiss. Part of him screamed that it was wrong, part of him knew that it felt right, and all of him loved every second as their tongues pressed against eachother. This time as they kissed, it was joel's paw rather than Mark's that had decided to explore the other's body; As he melted against the canine, unconciously his digits moved around to feel against the furry chest. When he reached Mark's right nipple, those digits clamped down on and with a gentle twist he coaxed a gasp out of the muzzle that had previously been locked with his own.

As their lips broke contact for a second time, Joel remained silent as he moved his muzzle down to Mark's throat and pressed it into the soft off-white fur of the wolf's chin. In his throat, Joel could feel a rumbling as he nuzzled and nibbled on the soft fur around Mark's collarbone. As he listened to the sounds around him, he realized that the rumbling he felt was a purr, and it was coming from him. He was a feline after all... felines on earth purred... he purred... and he gasped too, as he felt something soft rub against his member. It didn't take him long to realize that one of Mark's paws had found it's way into his pants. Feeling the soft leathery surface of the paw pads against his cock startled him at first, but the surprise melted away into a pleasure that he couldn't deny was real.

When he heard the voice, he almost thought it was imagined, coming from miles and miles away. Indeed it took the drunken feline to realize there was actually another person in the room, and that person was talking to him.

"Hey, can you even hear me right now? I said you two need to get a room or something..." the voice of the leopard said, and before he could think, the scene had jumped from the living room to Mark's bedroom. His shirt was off, and his dogtags were dangling from his neck into mark's chestfur. As the wolf was working on the button at the back of his pants, Joel worked at the button and zipper in front. Drunkeness was making even the simple task of working the zipper down past his erection a difficult task, but soon the sound of the zipper going down was enough to reveal 6 inches of dark pink flesh that it took a few seconds to recognize as his penis. The thing looked strange and exotic as it quivered and pulsed with his heartbeat; The head was longer and shaped more like a cone than the dome he remembered. Along the head, there were nubs that poked out of it in lines all the way back to the flare of the head. At the base, there was a soft ring of furred flesh that he recognized as some sort of sheath or foreskin, and he touched it in a sense of awe before his vision was obscured by the presence of a furred wolf paw.

As the wolf began to stroke, Joel pushed himself back to allow the wolf better access; When he did, he couldn't help but notice the bulge that was Mark's straining erection underneath him. Once Joel had moved, Mark sat up and moved his muzzle to meet the quivering cock in his paw and with a solitary lick against his feline barbs, the feeling was already almost too much. When the wolf added a paw to cup his balls, and slid his mouth around the quivering member, Joel whined... The wolf pulled his mouth off the cock to look up at Joel.

The feeling washed over Joel hard and strong as his jizz began to spurt onto the canine's muzzle. With a yelp, the wolf looked down as shots of cum hit him in the nose. In surprise, Mark opened his mouth to catch the load... and Joel's pleasure only increased as that warm muzzle wrapped around his dick again to swallow what was months of pent up sexual energy. As Joel's orgasm died down, he felt completely and utterly spent; Still, that didn't stop him from giving the wolf a firm kiss on the muzzle before passing out.

***

When Joel woke up, he could just barely perceive the clock clicking from 1000 to 1001 and the light that was filtering in through the window. As he moved, he could feel the headache that was a combination of fleeting drunkenness and a coming hangover. Looking down to find his pants unzipped and revealing grey fur that he only partially recognized as his own, he began to piece together the night prior.

He remembered the video game, the bloody taste of the whiskey, the strange beer... and then things got fuzzy. How had he gotten from the living room to the bedroom, and why the hell were his pants down? Something in the air smelled vaguely of dried cum, and more details came to him through the haze. He and the wolf had kissed. Joel could remember the feel of the long tongue in his mouth and the excitement it brought; and more, he remembered that he was the one that had started it. After that came the grope, followed by a haphazard trip to the bedroom... more fuzzyness. Part of him felt a little sick and disgusted at the thought when he managed to push away the darkness in his memory to remember what came next... The wolf had pulled down his pants and Joel had helped him. He remembered the soft paw on his member, the lick, the sucking, and finally the explosion of cum.

He couldn't remember having climaxed so hard or fast in his life as the scene came back to him. Did it make him gay? At this point did he even care? He tried to push the questions to the back of his mind as he pulled up and zipped the khakis. As he stood up at the side of the bed, it took him little time to realize that his pants were falling down again and that he had to button the back as well as the front; It would take him some time to get used to that. With minimal trouble, he managed to reach behind himself to find the strap and push the button through the hole. Not sure which shirt on the floor was his, he walked over to his assault pack in the corner and pulled out his spare APFU t-shirt.

As Joel opened the doorway, light spilled into the unlit hallway and the smell of something cooking spilled back into the room. From what Joel could tell, the mixture of aromas contained frying meat, cooking pancakes, and freshly scrambled eggs: the real breakfast of champions. Eagerly, Joel made his way down the hall to find Mark working in the kitchen. As Joel watched the wolf, he realized that he had no regrets about the pevious night other than the fact it took getting drunk for him to finally explore the possibilities that the night prior had played out.

"You need help with that?" Joel asked, breaking the relative silence of popping grease.

"Sure. Um... about last night..."

"It was wonderful," Joel finished for him, silencing the wolf who pushed his ears flat against his head in what the feline could now recognize as an expression of embarassment. Processing the words, though, the wolf relaxed a bit and smiled dimly."Where do you keep the dishes?"

"Cupboard to the left of the sink," the wolf replied, and Joel began policing up study notes and books so as to set the table for Mark and Himself. As he set about doing it, he realized the presense of the spotted grey lump of fur still curled up in the chair from the night prior and cleared a third place for Tony.

"So, When do classes start up?" Joel asked the canine, somewhat serious about his statement the night prior of going to school. He had tried college once before, but a few semesters short of graduation he had dropped out to join the army and get rid of a troublesome girlfriend otherwise set on marrying him. For the last year and a half he had regretted never getting a degree, but he had never come to regret the decision to join the army in the first place. As he thought about his assumed age, it was almost like getting a second chance at life.

"Freshman Placement Testing started some time last week. If you're really serious about it, I'd say you should go in today. No time like the present," the wolf suggested. "Have you thought about what you want to study?"

The question broadsided Joel. While he had studied both computer science and psychology before joining the army, he realized that it would probably be easier to learn a completely new discipline than having to relearn everything he knew about computer programming and studies on the human (furry?) mind.

"I don't suppose there's an 'undeclared' option?" Joel suggested.

"Yes, but only for the first year, and only if you get good enough scores on your Freshman Placement Test. You get one course from each college that the school offers and then you have to pick one to stay in. After that You get one course from each major that the college of choice offers... Hold on a second..." Amid his explanation, Mark stopped to turn the sausages, then continued, "Once you pick one of those, you've used up most of your elective classes and for your last two years you take a specific discipline within the branch that you previously majored in. If you drop out due to grades or fail to make a selection, the government stops paying for your education and you have to foot the whole bill yourself or join the Army."

"What do you mean they STOP paying for the degree?"

"Well, provided that a student gets good enough test scores on his Freshman Placement Test... Hold... sausages again... to meet the requirements for an open education contract, it's almost guaranteed that they get a full government selection scholarship." After a few seconds of thought, Joel had made up his mind.

"Just get me there then and I'm game."

"Cool. Hey, wake that lump of fur up. Breakfast is almost done. Be careful, he's a bit of a handful."

Mark hadn't lied; it wasn't easy waking up the sleeping snow leopard. After failing to wake the feline up by shouting at him and shaking at him, Joel finally resorted to the one thing he knew nobody would fail to respond to short of being on the verge of death: the sternum rub. Surely enough, the pain induced by Joel's knuckles rubbing rapidly across the feline's sternum was more than enough to induce him to wake from his near-comatose state.

"What the fuck..." The snowmew exclaimed as he jumped from the recliner, making an effort to secure himself as far away from Joel as he possibly could.

"Hey, it woke you up didn't it?" Joel said, standing back from the leopard.

"Anyone ever tell you to seek mental help? Hey Mark, where do you find these people?"

"It woke you up, didn't it? Anyway, breakfast is ready." At the mention of breakfast, the cat quickly forgot about the pain and took a place at the table.

"I didn't know you made enough at the bar to afford all this..." The leopard commented. As Joel thought about it, the idea did strike him as quite out of place; When he had been in college it had been a fight to afford ramen, let alone a continental breakfast.

"I don't really. I just don't get many guests from out-of-town and I hate to be a bad host." The wolf explained as he shoveled a massive heap of scrambled eggs, sausages, and pancakes onto Joel's plate and did likewise for himself and Tony.

"I appreciate it?" Joel asked more than said as he looked at the pile of food in front of him. As he stared at the jumbled mass, he picked up a fork and retrieved a sausage. As far as he could tell, it smelled vaguely like a combination of chicken and pork. A single bite told him that his guess wasn't far off the mark; Despite the fact it didn't seem likely to be a good combination, it proved more than sufficient for Joel's new feline tastes.

After the sausages, Joel tried the eggs and then a bite of pancake. The eggs tasted like regular chicken eggs, and the pancakes could have been any that he had back at the D-Fac. With no more hesitation, he dug into the pile of food as if he were back at the chow-hall in Basic. After having nothing to eat for the past day and a half other than a few handfuls of junkfood, he was hungry enough to clean off the entire table. By the time they had finished the meal, Joel had devoured a full two-thirds of everything Mark had prepared, and he couldn't rightly be arsed to care in the least about it.

"You know I hate to eat and run, but I really need to get ready for work, and if you want to keep your job you should too, Mark." The leopard said as he started to gather up his study materials from the table.

"Eh, you know I'm cool with the boss. Just tell him the truth: I have a friend in from out of town, and between that and finals week my regular schedule is getting it's ass kicked. It seriously can't be all that busy at the bar with finals starting tomorrow."

"Whatever, just make sure to call him and let him know what's going on."

"Will do." Almost before Mark could reply to the leopard's last statement, he was out the door and Joel was once again alone in the house with the wolf.

"Enjoy breakfast?" the wolf asked with a smile.

"Yeah. It wasn't too much different than what I'm used to back home; Better at any rate."

"I try."

"And I've gotta thank you for last night. I... It was my first time doing... I mean... Well, lets just say I learned a lot about myself that I'd probably been trying to avoid for some time," Joel explained as he reached his hand behind his head to scratch his right ear.

"I'm just glad that you don't hate me for it; I'll chalk it up to being drunk on both our parts. Anyway, If you want to take your Freshman Placement Test we should probably get going right now. It's lucky for you the college is within walking distance. I don't really want to run down my batteries driving around today."

"Sure. Just let me grab my things," Joel said as he left grab his weapon.

When he got back to the door, Mark shot him a confused look. "Why do you have that?"

"Have what?" Joel asked, not realizing what Mark could have been talking about.

"THAT! Again, I don't know how things work where you come from, but we don't go walking around colleges with assault rifles here." The realization made Joel feel a bit silly, but at the same time it would feel odd walking out the door without a weapon after so many months of keeping it on his person constantly. Hesitantly, he took it off his back and handed it to the wolf.

"Don't suppose you have a secure place I can put it?"

"Sure, I'll put it in the garage in the gun safe with all of your other... things. Again, not that I distrust you, but even after last night I don't really know all that much about you."

"You know I gotta ask, why didn't you take it to begin with?"

"When I dragged you inside to the bed you had a death grip on the thing. It took three hours for me to get it away from you. After I managed to unload it, it turned into just another blunt object, and I had plenty of those around my room already. Besides, my grandpa was a soldier and he told me stories about a soldier's attachment to his weapon. I'll go put this in the safe. I'll be right back."

When the wolf had disappeared through the laundry room, Joel realized that he was about to walk into a new world. Part of him knew the only thing keeping him together was probably some immense measure of shock, but he was no stranger to great change. Today was the first day in the rest of his life, and no matter how different that life stood to be, he knew a part of him already wanted it. Through his shirt, he clutched his steel dogtags as a small gesture to perhaps ward himself from forgetting the past, and help him into the future.

*end Joel the first*