FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Hey, Gunner, look!" the young Malamute exclaimed while peering through the frosted glass window.

"What now, Justin?" the significantly older tiger grunted from the couch, his head not turning from the television. "Another queer couple making out? Or some bitch who's fat enough to block out the sun?"

"No, it's not that...just...look!" he repeated, pointing through the window to the pallid figure in the distance. "Is she...naked?!"

At that last word, Gunner turned around, his curiosity aroused, and peered suspiciously through the window, trying to make out the figure on the far side of the road through the swirling snowstorm. "Shit, Justin!" he exclaimed, his eyes widening at what he saw. "Grab a few towels, will ya, and meet me outside!"

Justin scrambled around their small apartment, cramped with furniture, and made his way to the bathroom while the tiger grabbed his thick coat off of the coat rack by the door and ran outside. Stopping only to rip open the flimsy door on the gate surrounding the complex, he hurried across the street to catch up to the stumbling nude dragoness.

"Hey, wait!" he yelled. "Lady, will you wait?! Christ, lady, what the hell do you think you're doing out here like this?" Justin ran up behind him after narrowly dodging a car zooming down the road and threw a towel to his older roommate, a second one still in his clutched paw. Gunner eyed the dragoness, who had not quit trying to make her way forward through the snowstorm. As he carefully wrapped the towel around her, Gunner silently cursed his Malamute buddy for having a thicker natural coat and for not thinking to throw on a coat for himself before running out--the coat he brought was for her, and he laid it almost haphazardly around her shoulders.

"Oh, shit, Gunner!" Justin exclaimed, staring slack-jawed at the dragoness. "I think she's one of them, Gunner! Do you think? She's probably one of them that we've heard on the news, coming through portals and shit! I mean, why else would she--"

"Don't jump to conclusions, kid!" Gunner growled before turning back to the dragoness. "Did someone do this to you?" he asked her. "Did someone hurt you? Do you need us to call the police?" She stayed silent, though she finally quit walking, and was just staring at the ground, as if taking in the sudden attention.

"L-l-l-l-" she stuttered, the two gentlemen barely able to hear her feeble voice above the howl of the swirling wind. "La-la...Lav...Lavi...nia..." she managed to produce, her hand coming up just barely enough to point to herself.

"Lavinia?" Gunner repeated after a pause. "Is that your name? Lavinia?"

"La...vinia..." the dragoness stated again. "Is...wh-what...they...c-c-c-call..." Each word sounded strained, as if she were trying to recall a memory from a previous life that had been long forgotten. She couldn't think of the last word, so she just pointed to herself again.

"Look, we gotta get you inside and warmed up," Gunner said. "We can call the police for you, if you like. Do you have a family? Someone to help you?" Lavinia had fallen silent again, just staring at the ground.

"Come on," Justin said, lightly grabbing her hand in an attempt to help guide her. Just as he did, however, Lavinia burst into tears, wailing desperately, her previously feeble voice suddenly ringing out enough for the whole complex to hear.

"What the hell, Justin?!" Gunner exclaimed. "Don't grab her so hard!"

"I barely touched her!" the malamute cried in defense. "Look, just come on!" he said, turning to her. "We're all right furs! We'll just get you inside and get you warmed up, okay?" He started to cross the street back to their apartment, his hand still holding hers, and the dragoness suddenly hugged herself to him, still crying outlandishly. Wrapping his other arm around her, he held her close as they made their way back to their apartment, a few heads appearing at nearby windows or doorways to see what all the commotion was about.

"I'm telling you, man," Justin yelled to Gunner over Lavinia's crying as they made their way inside, "she's not from here! She's, like, from wherever those portals go to!"

"Even if she is," Gunner shouted a bit angrily, "then it's best if you don't raise your voice about it! We don't need something like that broadcasted! And Lavinia, please, you're gonna be all right, so you don't need to keep crying so loudly like that!" He slammed the front door closed once they were all inside, shutting out the howling wind, and helped Justin sit her down on their couch. He picked up the remote to turn off the TV when he noticed that the earsplitting crying had suddenly stopped.

Both of the males just looked at Lavinia who sat now, staring transfixed at the television set as the newscaster went on about what was going on in Congress. They exchanged perplexed glances, and went back to studying her. Justin knelt down beside her and used the corner of the free towel still in his hand to wipe away some of the tears on her face. She sniffed, but her expression stayed the same blank look it had been before she had started crying outside.

"Do you like TV?" he asked her.

"What sort of stupid question is that?" Gunner said to him.

"I dunno!" Justin hissed back at him. "Maybe she'll say something more! I dunno!"

"Well, we're gonna have to find out where her family is or something."

"Where were you headed, Ms. Lavinia?" Justin asked her.

She stayed silent for a long while, the TV still going on about the various events the station deemed worth reporting. Then, suddenly, she uttered in a voice barely above a whisper, "Nowhere."

"Nowhere," Gunner repeated, having had to lean in to hear her. "So you were just wandering around aimlessly in this sort of weather? Do you have a home?"

"Nowhere," she repeated. "Nothing. Nowhere. Nothing."

"Great," Gunner sighed. "She's a homeless drifter, and retarded from the sound of it."

"Don't say that!" Justin said defensively, jerking his head around to him. "You don't know that!" He looked back at her, and his eyes widened with revelation. "We can keep her here!"

"Quit acting like such a pup!" Gunner growled.

"Quit treating me like one! I'm 20 years old!"

"And where will we keep her? You're already sleeping on the couch. I'm in my room and David's in his. Shit, David! What will he say about all this?" Gunner glanced at the clock mounted on the wall. "He gets home in half an hour! He won't agree to keeping her, you know."

"Why not? He took me in."

"Yeah, I'm quite aware of that," Gunner smirked. "But you're his brother. This," he gestured to the dragoness, "is a complete stranger, and a wild one at that. We have no idea what her story is or how to help her other than to keep her out of this weather."

"This weather isn't going to let up anytime soon here. They're saying it's gonna be bad like this almost all winter."

"Bullshit. It can't stay like this all winter. It'll clear up and then we can get her out of here."

"So you're agreeing to keep her here?" Justin grinned triumphantly.

"If David is fine with it, then fine. Whatever. We'll make it work, somehow." Gunner sighed, rubbing his eyes. "What do you think of all this, Missy?" he asked Lavinia, who simply stayed silent, staring at the TV.

"Where were you headed?" Justin asked her once again, quietly, as if more to himself. He noticed a small flicker behind her eyes: a thought registering, forming, organizing. A sudden yet quiet revelation. "You DO know, don't you?" the malamute exclaimed.

"There!" she suddenly shouted, startling the two males as she rose immediately to her feet in a wave of grace and assertion, her finger pointing at the television set. The tiger and the malamute looked at the TV and saw the news report showing live footage of what looked like a moving building. The light adjusted better and they all watched as what was thought to be a building at first revealed itself to be a grizzly bear that was beyond massive. Towering 12 feet high, his muscles were exploding obscenely around his body, even the smallest bulging to the size of a VW Beetle. This monstrosity's testament to pure, unbridled strength was blatant in all excess, yet the beast showed no signs of malice or destruction--he was simply walking down the street, his expression appearing to be in almost as much awe of his surroundings as his surroundings were in awe of him.

Gunner and Justin stood transfixed at the image on the screen, neither of them noticing as Lavinia darted for the television screen. Justin caught on just as Lavinia looked ready to try to jump through the 32" monitor, and gave out a cry as he reached out to grab her. She was too fast, and he missed, winced at the impending collision, and did a double take when he thought he saw her pass right through the TV, disappearing behind the wall behind it.

Gunner witnessed the same thing, and they both looked around the room, trying to find where she had landed. She must have bounced back, obviously...people can't pass through solid objects! But only when they heard a cry from one of the bedrooms did they consider their eyes to have been telling them the truth. Running around the small, narrow hallway, the two gazed into the bedroom that shared the TV's wall in the living room. There, on the floor at the foot of the bed, was Lavinia, sprawled out and sobbing.

"Lavinia!" Gunner cried and helped her up. "Are you hurt? What happened?!" He gazed at the wall she had come through, trying to find the huge gaping hole that the laws of physics tell him should be there...but the wall was just as solid as whole as ever. "How on earth did you...?" He couldn't function his reasoning brain to finish the absurd sentence he wanted to ask, because it would mean admitting that Lavinia had actually passed through solid matter without breaking it or herself.

"How..." Lavinia started. "Why did it not work?" She was speaking a bit more easily than she had been before, as if memory of the English language was coming back to her. "Is your portal broken?"

"Portal?" Justin asked incredulously. "Oh...OH! Gunner! I told you! I told you she's from one of those portals! She--" he started to chuckle, "she thinks our TV..." He doubled over, laughing harder. "She thinks..." He was laughing to hard to finish, but Gunner understood, and the tiger didn't think it was as funny.

"You thought our television was a portal," he stated calmly to the confused looking dragoness. "It's not a--Justin, shut the hell up!" The malamute stifled his barking laughter at the tiger's roaring command. "It's not a portal," Gunner explained, turning back to Lavinia. "It's merely what we call 'television.' It's a means of seeing things from far away. We can see them, but not interact with them. Nor travel to them. Not with a television, at least."

"This still doesn't explain how she did what she just did," Justin said after having calmed himself down.

"He's right, you know," Gunner said, still addressing the dragoness. "But if you're really from...somewhere else...then I suppose we should expect the unexpected from you, shouldn't we?"

"If that's the case," Justin said, "then how do we know if we're gonna be safe around her?"

"How indeed..." Gunner trailed off, still studying the dragoness with intense interest.