FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Any student who strives for excellence becomes all too familiar with late nights. While the night time is a thrilling realm of drunken, rose-tinted escapades for most teens, the chains of academia bar the ambitious from diving into the dark honey of nightlife. Instead, they must be confined to the fluorescent-lit jails of libraries, offices or bedrooms. Note-taking, flash carding, line rehearsing, and for a student council member, paper working.

Hafsa and Desmond had grown accustomed to working together. An inevitable development, given the sheer amount of work a president and vice-president must do together. While secretary and treasurer provide the essential building blocks of a project, the construction workers who transmute rough plans and predictions into feasible reality are the two higher-ups. Their pride as leaders supersede whatever instinctual game of cat and mouse (or cat and sheep) their subconscious seem to play.

But pulling all-nighters together, alone in the office is... tense. They discuss, they work, they even banter, but the implications linger like sour hints of rot in the air. A carnivore and a herbivore... alone at night. If Hafsa looks up from her paperwork, she would be met with the same bookshelf she had once slammed the sheep against. Yet another grim reminder she must pretend to ignore.

She shakes the thought away. The last thing this school needs is another missing sheep.

"Desmond," she calls. "Have you gotten in touch with the band yet?"

He sighs from his desk. "Unfortunately. They know the pep rally routine inside and out by now, but they adore making everything harder than it has to be..."

Hafsa tilts her head. "How so?"

"Internal drama. Carnie vs. herbie spat. They're saying they want to split the band in two."

"Ugh." The serval narrows her eyes in annoyance. "I guess not everyone is over Lupercalia."

"Evidently. I told them to suck it up for the pep rally and complain to the office later."

"Great. Can't wait for an hour of band drama being yelled at me." She peers over to her companion curiously. "I'm surprised you're not in favor of this."

He raises his head haughtily. "Even I can see that splitting a band in two is just a shortcut to getting band shut down forever. There's not enough members for each half to make a full band, plus carnies and herbies rehearsing separately just wouldn't make sense, if only for the fact we only have one music room."

"Wow, someone's been thinking about this."

"More like rehearsing what I'm going to tell the nerds when they come carping. You should've gone to talk to them in the first place."

"Ew. Why me?"

Desmond flattens his ears. "You're the charismatic one here. Your stupid little kitty-cat act could schmooze the stripes off a tiger."

Hafsa clutches at her chest in feigned affection. "Aww, you flatter me."

She only gets a monotone imitation of a chuckle as a response. The serval allows a bemused smile to play on her lips. It's bizarre, but despite the unsaid tension between predator and prey, Hafsa finds herself strangely relaxed in his presence as well. There is no need to wear her signature grin, or put on her usual charade. Who knew all it took to open up to someone was nearly eating them?

Before she can help it, a loud yawn escapes her mouth. "Ah, sorry." She apologizes, sheepishly looking away. No matter how shameless she is in front of him, an open-mouthed beast of a yawn like that is rude for any carnie to let out, especially in front of a herbie. If only her reflexes were sharper at 2am.

Desmond stomps down the shiver starting to form at the top of his spine. The glare of a carnivore's exposed fangs never fails to set his heart racing. He knows she can't help it though, at least not this time.

"Here." A carnie energy bar, strawberry flavored, flies in a graceful arc through the air, landing on Hafsa's desk with a thud.

"For me?" Hafsa asks stupidly, clearly taken aback.

"Who else? You said these wake you up. Eat up and get the rest of your work done."

Her look of surprise softens into a smile. "Thanks." She grabs the bar and studies it. "Y'know, I usually buy a different brand."

Desmond snorts indignantly. "You must forgive me, I'll make sure to get it right next time."

Hafsa shakes her head quickly. "No, no. I actually prefer this one now. Ever since Lupercalia."

He doesn't answer. The silence is only partially filled by the crinkling of cellophane as Hafsa unwraps the bar and begins to chow down with her customary zeal. Her companion can't help but sneak a peek while resuming his work.

They slog on, minutes turning into hours. Although the energy bar and the occasional quips from Desmond help keep Hafsa energized, as 3:30am approaches, she can't help but feel her eyelids grow heavy with sleep.

"Hafsa? Hafsa!" Desmond calls out pointedly.

"Hm? What?" She mumbles groggily, lifting her suddenly weighty head up from her activities.

The sheep looks at her in exasperation. It's clear that Hafsa, despite her stellar reputation, is not used to staying up late. She looks so beat up he's surprised she's even managed to stay awake this long.

He sighs. "We're nearly done here. I can finish what's left, so go get some sleep."

Her ears clumsily swivel around, almost imitating the gears turning in her head. "Huh? No, no, no. We still need to finish the firework permits and stuff... I'm still good to go."

"You're clearly not. Your eyes are all glazed over."

"How are you so perky, still? Been chewing on 24-hour energy cud or something?" She chortles at her own foolish joke and slumps over her desk, satisfied. Is she sleep-deprived or drunk...?

"Sheep only need around four hours of sleep a day."

"Whu--!" Hafsa's eyes dilate in surprise. "No fair! Cheater! I wanna be a sheep!"

"No, you don't." Desmond responds in a grave voice, completely at odds with Hafsa's playful tone. She flips her head on the desk to face him, but his expression is unreadable. It seems to sober her up a bit, but before she can pry any further, he continues. "Anyways, pack up and go to your dorm. I'll handle the rest."

"No way!" She jolts up like a wave of electricity had been shot through her body. "What kind of a president would I be if I left all the work to be done by my underling?"

"The same kind of president who calls her vice an 'underling'."

"Besides!" She barks. "I still need to walk you back to your dorm once we're through here."

"Not happening." He snaps. "I certainly don't need you to play bodyguard over a ten minute walk."

"Desmond..." It's her turn to go serious now. "Isaac was a sheep too, and he went missing during a public event. It's not smart to walk home alone, especially this late."

"Shut it!" Desmond jumps to his feet, knocking over his chair with a loud clatter. "Don't think I'm some pathetic little lamb! I-I don't need some self-absorbed carnie telling me what to d--!"

He blinks, and opens his eyes in Hafsa's shadow. There she is again, hunched over, engulfing him in her presence. Her eyes, cruel and dull, seize him in place. The needle-thin pupil pierces through the iris, dimmed by shade to the color of dried blood, nailing the sheep where he stands like a taxidermy butterfly.

His senses are dulled by the usual fever. The delirious heat that engulfs the head, hands, and chest, a last desperate plea of a herbivore's scalding blood to run far away before it's spilled and drunk. The choked, irregular breaths, unsure of whether to hyperventilate or stop breathing altogether. And of course. The heartbeats. The wretched, writhing pulsations that infest every fiber of the body, be it the ears or the brittle, salty back of the throat. The body's most important and most anguishing reminder, beaten into your very core over and over and over again.

You are alive.

This horrific cacophony of sensation possesses him, as it always will when confronted by death. A herbivore's desire to live is only ever inversely proportional to their desire not to die. In these moments, the animal is stripped down and exposed as the biological machine it has always secretly been. A pathetic automaton devoid of sentience, simply wanting to continue executing its programming.

Yet a single thought glints through this inferno of biological warnings.

How powerful.

A simple, stupid, meaningless observation. A serval, compared to a sheep, is objectively and obviously more powerful. Why bring remark upon this now? Why admire it? Will this lowly, impotent creature die in awe of his killer? Will his last moments of consciousness be lost trying to memorize the crepuscular tint of maroon in his predator's eyes or the warmth of her breath on his forehead, or the twinkling of her whiskers in the fluorescent lights?

She lifts her hand towards his face. This is it. He sends a silent apology to his ancestors, or perhaps just to himself, for dying so bewitched, so utterly absent in disgust.

The hand, adorned with five brilliant pearly claws, approaches his throat. Desmond closes his eyes, wishing he were crying.

But the hand does not rip open his jugular. It doesn't claw and slash through cartilage, letting loose a fountain of blood spray.

No.

The hand gingerly caresses his throat, its wrist resting on his shoulders as the lithe finger run through the curly locks of piebald wool. The claws, still unsheathed, delicately scratch the fluff, a claw tip occasionally tickling the base of skin.

And her eyes. A strange mix of violence and docility, of intensity and sympathy. Her pupils remain fiercely constricted into a thin slit but her expression is one filled with concern.

"I'm being honest with you now." Her voice, hushed and scratchy, overthrows his heartbeats. "So be honest with me."

He says nothing. How could he?

"You can't stand how I try to hide being a carnivore," she continues. "So why do you try to hide being a herbivore?"

Her touch slows his heart rate.

"I'm probably not one to talk... But acknowledge your weaknesses before working on your strengths. "

Her voice smoothens his breathing.

"I want to get along with you, you know. For real. So we need to stop putting on acts for each other. There's no point now."

Hafsa.

"So... I'll walk you to your dorm. Okay?"

He nods.