FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Written by fugi88 ( patreon.com/Fugi88 ), commissions open

If you like stories like this, feel free to donate what little you can to paypal.me/fugi88 or patreon.com/fugi88 - It helps a lot!

* * *

The boat had dropped me off at the island, laden with a large wicker basket of fresh fish. It was quite a walk to the clearing i'd have to go to and i was beginning to get weak thinking of what was waiting for me there. I'd heard it was tame. It's not like those found in other countries, those breeds which happen to be incredibly territorial and ready to kill _anything_ which trespassed. No, this one was likely the tamest of them all. And it had come to visit this island specifically.

But yet still, i sat at the tree and procrastinated. The small dot on the sea becoming yet smaller and smaller as it ran down to the mainland, its sails filled with air, eager to leave this place.

I eventually, after the sun ran some way across the sky, got up and began walking. I listened as the sound of the sea faded to the sound of rustling leaves and bird cries. I was getting deeper into the forest, closer and closer to the roost, where the dragon was probably waiting.

I'd never really been in a situation where i let myself get any nearer then a few kilometres to these things, and here i was, walking towards it. Every step brought the butterflies in my stomach to a furious flight, knowing i was getting ever-closer to that clearing. This “voluntary" role was nothing more then a forced deal with my friends who wanted to help me with their silly “exposure therapy".

The wicker basket dug into my back and dripped vile liquid onto my legs.

I eventually reached the clearing. Knowing it held the thing, the animal which could kill anybody in record time, i was sent a pang of anxiety. I felt my heartbeat reverberate through my tiny body and my hands couldn't help but stutter and shake as i saw the thing there. It was grotesquely beautiful, an animal of elegance my instincts had chosen to despise.

The visiting dragon was sitting patiently. It had come to expect the midday supplies to it would follow it wherever it went, to whichever roost it had chosen. Its inquisitive stare only drove fear into me. It saw my fear. It licked its lips, and i tried to take to mean that it wanted to eat the fish, but my subconscious conjectured otherwise.

I dropped the wicker basket near the entrance to the clearing and poured out the fish, careful to make sure they were spread out so the dragon would take more time to eat.

I sat down on the opposite side of the path in, trying to be as passive as i could. If i moved, it might move in for the kill. If i stayed still, it might just stay there eating the fish. Well, i knew it wouldn't go i for the kill because it was relatively calm tempered, but i still had common sense.

His massive body moved in a serious, almost threatening way, eating whilst he tried to hide his strength, sensing my absolute fear only growing more absolute.

He chucked me a fresh fish. The trees here cast weird lighting and made the grey fish have such vivid red. But these fish were a special breed. It was one of those rare royal breeds i had heard of; slightly iron-y in taste. The blood in them was very sharp and, let's say, an acquired seasoning, a kind of lingering iron which coats the back of your mouth. It was twofold, from the mild venous blood and the massively overpowering arterial blood.

I felt tingles across my body with each swish of that blood in my mouth, an irony salty taste. It became growingly disgusting so i spat it out. An acquired taste, indeed.

The movements i made in spitting out the half-chewed meat felt like they were foreign; my tongue was too large for its mouth.

I tried to grasp it to get a sense of just how it had changed, but then saw a checkerboard pattern slowly materialising across my hand's skin in an almost random way, squares popping in slowly. it is with this i felt a tighter and more rigid kind of skin, one formed not of a cohesive rubbery unity but instead that of a leathery, scale-based system. The scales cut through the leather, ripping past nerve endings. It was a horrific ripping feel, something like the grotesque feeling of self-administering a paper-cut.

As the changes moved from skin and went deeper, i could feel my bones slowly shift. It felt as if organs were moving around, a squelchy itch running across the inside of me. The bones lengthened and pushed my muscle to a breaking point as if i had done weightlifting the day prior, but it recovered itself remarkably quickly, growing and expanding to suit a new weight that i'd have to bear.

My legs thickened as my foot turned into little more then a stump, my toes pushing into the surrounding skin, being pushed against the growingly dense skin. Pain erupted from this change.

My arms, too, became less useful as they shifted from my shoulder to my front, the joint turning inwards to promote inwards movement instead. My hands, to my horror, slowly became less like hands and more like advanced paws, an utter downgrade.

I managed to glance at the dragon staring at me in surprise. It had expected this as much as i had; not at all. I noticed the dragon's unique scale pattern. It was almost its defining feature, its way of having a unique body.

I couldn't look for long, though, as i felt my head get bludgeoned by the changes too, as my jaw and nose extended into a longer, more dragon-like contraption, my ears moving up to the top of my head. I heard a horrific whistling noise, the pain inside my ear growing as i adjusted to be able to hear higher frequencies, giving a new layer of texture to the noises around me, a sharper, more precise series of noises.

My skin was changing colour, too, still charring into the midnight blue as the skin deeper and deeper became more and more dragony.

I continued change, feeling a massive hunger pang

So, i went to the fish pile and ate half the fish. The nutrients went into me and continued the growth.

You know growing pains? Imagine them, but everywhere, the ebbing soreness taking my whole body, the flashes of red and pure pain seething through my body.

My back changed shape in a weird process as the nerve endings cut themselves off and reconnected themselves, sending brief flashes of numbness to me before the pain came back. My ribcage grew to fit new proportions, letting my tailbone extend to form a heavy tail. It pushed my centre of gravity back, feeling each new connection in my spine come and go.

It was almost sickening, but eventually, after several minutes of painful change, i became a new dragon. The dragon who had become called himself Soot, as per his colouring. Given the scream i had inadvertently emitted without even noticing, he called me Rory, which somehow matched my real-world name.

I felt instinct push me closer to him as he did likewise, us being pent-up and touch-deprived. We spent the night together, enjoying newfound intimacy.

**The end**