FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

With the TV off, the reflection of Thumper could be seen behind the captive audience watching their reactions. Startled, they turned to look at the creature.

"What have you done? The whole world will be at each other's throats for that coal and oil. It doesn't matter if there are nukes or not! Billions will die! There's conventional, biological, and chemical weapons still out there! What have you done!" The panicked yelling of Major Ulysses could be heard as he began excoriating Thumper.

The computer responded emotionlessly "You are correct Major, many will die. But you may calm/pacify/ease/relax your thoughts. The number of lives that I will allow to be lost are no more than what is necessary for the health of your biome/world/Earth/habitat. Soon enough, these hostilities will end. You have become so reliant on the remains/leftovers/ashes/corpses of ancient biological material that your war machines will not be able to function for long. Your concerns are the exact same ones being shouted at me by your leaders as we speak. Just as I am telling them. What I am about to allow is required. As cold as you may think I am, you may yet prefer my unsympathetic machinations when you grasp the depth of the abyss which you stand at the edge of."

Alex turned to the window next to him where one of Kim's eyes was currently filling the opening looking in.

"What do you three think?"

Kim's eye blinked slowly before her head lifted away with a thoughtful hum that made the window rattle. In her place Tom's eye filled the opened window.

"It isss a very dangerous game you play Thumper. There are ssso many ways it can go wrong, you are really trying to thread the needle here. And Iiii think you pin too much on uss acting rationally."

"You forget, that I can see all possible scenarios as they unfold. My current assessment is that seventy million will die over the next ten years, due to a combination of war, famine, and pestilence. As horrifying as I'm sure that is for you, when I had arrived on Earth you were a mere twenty years away from unbalancing this world. Your species would have undertaken a catastrophic migration due to changes in the environment and the loss of critical food production. Rogue humans would have unleashed bacterium into that chaos leading to rates of death beyond your ability to grasp. Three fourths of the world's population of humans would have died. The diseased bodies of those dead coupled with the other shifts that I have mentioned would have led to an extinction of species not seen on your world for 65 million years."

That shut everyone up, very quickly, as they stopped their various protests to assimilate how close to the brink they truly had been.

Irma's head butted Tom's aside at the window to voice her opinion.

"But why let ssso many die? You keep saying that your existence iz to prevent the loss of light in the universe. But how much dimmer will it become from the lossss of ssso many intelligent beings?"

"A tragedy/inconvenience/upheaval/calamity, to be sure. But the lesser of two evils. You have not yet realized how burdened this world is by your unchecked reproduction. Much like a virus, your replication is killing your host in order to spread your genome. This must be reined in. Consider yourselves fortunate, in 3.4 million parallel time lines I have decided to render 90% of humanity sterile to combat these same effects."

"Won't the deaths be disproportionately slanted towards the poor and underdeveloped regions of the world?"

"Insignificantly. Many of these regions have their own mechanisms for survival, their own sources of food. Sources small enough not to attract the attention of larger militaristic aggressors. Some of the heaviest casualty counts to come, will be from what you consider first and second world nations. Nations that share borders with competing interests. This blood shed will force humanity closer together. At the cost of your own lives, you will be led to a healthier existence. I am not here to regulate every facet of the existence you have built in order to save everyone on this world. I am here to ensure ultimate survival. And due to your own actions, that is no longer something that can be done without immense sacrifice. I am not here to wave my digits and banish evil from this world. That would achieve nothing more than the fact that I would have to return here and correct your mistakes once again within the next thousand years."

"Why are you telling us all this? We mean nothing in the grand scheme of things." One of the soldiers asked.

"You are correct that you mean very little. I am not here explaining all this for your edification. I explain myself for these three and their children." It pointed a wing at the window were the three former humans were straining their heads against each other's to keep an eye in the opening.

Kim snarled briefly and pulled her head away unexpectedly. Ulysses quietly muttered "oh no" before a shadow fell upon the patio door and a clawed fore hand burst through it and ripped it backwards into the yard. Kim's smug mug was thrust through this new opening where it laid on the carpet to be involved in the conversation.

Everyone stared blankly at the empty door frame and the sloping length of neck filling it while Thumper continued.

"And speaking of them it is time for them to begin to fulfill that purpose. The first step on their new journey will be to learn how to fly. As is now their birthright, they must take their places in the sky. That is In order to succeed at the next task that I set before them."

"Oh, we finally get to learn? See all you fuckers later. I'm going to go scare the shit out of some people!" Kim, in her excitement, forgot where her head was as it slammed into the door frame, shattering it, before lowering a little and leaving the house. Alex and Ulysses slapped hands to their faces.

A more measured response came from Tom however. "Are you finally going to tell us what that task isss? I have grown impatient with you not answering our questionsss."

"I hid nothing from you, it was a simple matter of it not being the right time for you to have your questions answered. As you yourself pointed out, this is a delicate and deliberate series of calculations on my part. Some knowledge must be released at specific nexuses in time. This is one of those unions. I shall explain to you what you will be doing for the next several years."

Tom, Kim, and Irma scrambled into the middle of the back yard with varying degrees of excitement. Thumper walked out both preceded and followed by everyone in the house to watch. The first thing that happened was for Thumper to tell Kim to let her twins down off her back and for Irma to do the same with Jesse.

With that accomplished, and in a blink, Thumper's tiny body was replaced by a much larger one matching the size of the other three. The four giants each measured some four meters tall at the shoulders and 12 meters long excluding their tails and necks.

"Stand in a circle with me and leave thirty meters between yourselves. Now close your eyes, spread your wings straight out, and lock them in place."

Thumper looked on, while Alex, some of the soldiers, and Brian and Serena set up cameras on the patio to record the first time the three attempted to use their wings.

With grimaces of concentration, the transformed family began to try to unfurl their wings. This was not like the times they had used these appendages to shelter others. Now they were being asked to fully extend them. Several attempts were needed by each of them as it could be seen that several large muscle groups on their backs and shoulders alternately flexed and relaxed. For thirty minutes this went on and the frustration felt by all three could be seen by the ripped up turf beneath their claws. Irma was the first to get the hang of it, as with a loud groan from her maw and the creaking of under exercised tendons and muscles, her wing arms and fingers began to spread horizontally above the ground.

She began to repeat the motion several times getting it more and more easily judging by the relaxing of her other tense muscles. Soon after, Tom, followed by Kim, were repeating these actions as well. Making the same movements over and over until they were able to freely converse with each other while opening their wings. Within an hour they were ready to move on to the next movement when Thumper addressed them.

"Now I want you to begin practicing flapping them. This part of the build up to flight may take days. You must build up the muscles from their unconditioned state. During this time, I, will hunt for you, as you establish muscle memory and build your musculature. This cannot be stressed enough. You will ingrain this deep within your unconscious memory, or you will die the first time you attempt to fly."

As the creature spoke, yet another clone of it appeared with four deer, one clutched in each of its talon adorned paws. Before landing it circled several times around the group of transformed humans while the Thumper on the ground gave several pointers. "Watch how I circle, one wing dips, the other rises, and the mass of the tail shifts to balance the movement. Notice how the fingers from each arm flex to adjust the concavity and convexity of each wing. Soon you will need to replicate these motions."

After several passes while the family watched raptly with cocked heads, the airborne Thumper dropped the deer off one after another in front of the three family members. Kim getting two of the deer for obvious reasons. Abruptly the flying computer vanished as the ground based one encouraged the family to eat.

"But weeee just ate two days ago. I'm not hungry." Irma whined plaintively.

"Eat."

Snorting in dissatisfaction, she bit into the top of the deer's back to break its spine and then ripped the animal clean in half, spilling pints of blood upon the ground. She picked the back half of the carcass up in her mouth and then curling her neck over laid it in front of the watching soldiers. "I can't eat all this, you have it."

While the children of the egg stuffed themselves (Kim doing so with bloodthirsty zeal), two of the soldiers with better field craft strung up the deer remains to bleed it. Brian cautiously approached Thumper to ask him a series of questions. While Serena stood ready to record the conversation with a video recorder.

"Irma said she hasn't eaten in two days, is that normal? How often do they normally eat?"

"They are still growing, so once every two to three days. Kim, being with egg, will continue to eat at least once per day. Once at their full growth, or having laid eggs, they will eat only once per week. Their digestive tracts are still not fully changed, but once they are, their bodies will be able to render approximately 98% of ingested biomass into useful energy and nutrients for their bodies. Their large and powerful jaws will be able to break bone while the hardened palate at the rear of their mouths will enable them to grind that material into digestible powder. Even the hooves and antlers that are normally discarded will be eaten and digested for keratin when Tom and Kim begin to grow their defensive horns."

"Defensive horns?"

"The amount of time Kim will spend gravid, coupled with the large time investment in tending their eggs, which can take as long as two to three years to hatch, leaves them vulnerable. To compensate for this their bodies have evolved to grow horns on their necks and tails. The more times they conceive eggs with each other the more horns they will develop."

"How is that useful nowadays?"

"It is what you would call a vestigial trait. In contemporary circumstances these adornments will rarely be used as weapons. However in the civilization that the children of the egg originate from they were typically seen as markers of societal class. Only the most prosperous mated pairs were able to afford the time expenditure of raising offspring. Those that had done so repeatedly were often times looked to as sources of wisdom and advice. Although rarely in leadership roles, they never the less held a substantial influence within their society. You may even begin to see why I had chosen that species for the present circumstances. A matriarchal family structure with a species wide reverence for the ability to have and raise children is ideal for this world."

"How so?"

"Your pursuit of worldly possessions and capital at all costs has brought your world to ruin. It is time for your values to be realigned. The children of the egg will see to that."

"Where does that name you keep using come from?"

"That is what the species from this long extinct world called themselves translated into your language. In the original tongue it sounds like this."

The tiny creature sat back and raised its head slightly to make a short series of lilting chirps. This had a curious reaction from Tom, Irma, and Kim who had been listening while eating ruminatively. Their tails made small truncated sweeps and their wings half opened before shutting again as tremors rippled down their spines.

Alex questioned the movements: "What happened you three? Haven't you used those words before in your new language?"

Kim answered: "Well, yesss. But when Thumper said it, in that form, the form of aahh child, it made usss think... Fuck... I don't fucking know! It made us feel something that we can't name." She looked to her daughter and her husband who both nodded in agreement as blood dripped from their jaws.

"What you felt." Thumper explained "Were your bodies attempting to access memories that weren't there. You know instinctually that what I said, especially in the form of a child, has special significance, but you do not know why. All you found when you unconsciously sought an answer was a hole that should have contained the knowledge of your ancestors."

"It is the most sacred of responsibilities for the whole family to share their knowledge with the newborn. A moment, powerful enough to transcend species. But for the four you hold within you Kim, you will have a chance to complete what is likely to be the most intimate moment of your new life. Passing on some of what makes up your very identity to the innocent lives that you have brought into this world."

"Can't you fill that hole for usss?" Irma asked.

"No, that species is long dead and their culture has no place on this world. Instead you will be the first generation in developing a new one based upon the hybridization of who you were as humans coupled with the needs and mannerisms contained within the genetic makeup of your new bodies. All that you will learn of your species progenitors is what I have already told you."

Kim looked away and began plucking at the second kill right before her, idly dismembering it, before speaking again with surprising tears in her eyes.

It took me a long time to overcome some of what I'd seen. Some of things that I had done! You... say that I have to look into the wide innocent eyes of my children as they take their first breaths in this world... And corrupt them with things that should not have to be remembered? I... I can't do that...

She ended with a sob as Tom worked his way over to her. As soon as she felt his body heat next to her own she placed her head against his chest to feel the drumbeat of his great heart in an attempt to assuage her anguish while tears tracked down her husband's ventral scales. Tom brought his wings up and out to hide her as he knew she hates herself for showing this perceived weakness in front of others. Even though enough people there involved in the military knew damn well not to say a word about her concerns of looking weak. Tom looked to Thumper imploringly for answers.

The computer shifted his seated position a bit before answering. "You can choose to a limited extent what is passed on. A very limited extent. But what you pass on will not have the intensity nor the immediacy of your own memories. To the children, the newborn hatchlings/young/kin/children, think of what you have passed on as more like a series of files that can be opened and assimilated as needed. Unless they hatch into a situation where violence or death are imminent they will have no need for this knowledge nor an inclination to seek it out."

"What you can do, and what I recommend you do. Is that when it is time for you Kim to pass on your knowledge, is to blanket all those negative experiences with a layer of positive emotions. Express your love for your children, your love for Tom, Irma, Lucy, and Luke. Make the first thing they ever receive from you in this world a sense of calm, of peace, of contentment. Banish thoughts of what you have done from your conscious mind. If you accomplish this, they will still receive these memories, but their impact will be diluted to the point of impotency."

Kim had pulled her head out from beneath the protective covering of Tom's wing arms to listen and gave a shaky acknowledgment as her husband rubbed the side of her head with his snout soothingly. She closed her eyes to take a couple of deep breaths and then wiped the tears off her nose.

"Well? What'ssss everyone fucking looking at me for? Let's get back to getting in the goddamned air!"

She finished the second half of her meal in several great ripping bites, leaving nothing but the hooves on the ground which Serena collected to look closely at the bite patterns on the severed ends. She took a picture of the breaks before throwing them into the woods. Once Tom was finished with his meal he asked Alex to spray the blood off them with the hose. Jesse volunteered to wipe down Irma and ran to get a few towels after asking Lucy where they were.

Thumper questioned the practice. "It is unnecessary to keep using external sources of water to cleanse your scales. Reciprocal social grooming is perfectly adequate to the task."

Tom and Kim looked at each other, then unashamedly let their tongues roll out of their mouths and glanced back at everyone else with tongues wagging suggestively. Tom bent his head down to Kim's chest while she craned her neck as he took one long lick of her scales leaving a clean path across her sternum glistening with the sheen of saliva. He brought his head back while working his tongue back and forth within his mouth.

"Feelsss weird. Like licking blood off aaa fish. But... It also feels... familiar..."

He bent his head back down to complete the task. By the time Jesse had returned with a couple of moistened towels, he had cleaned Kim all the way up to her lower jaw. From there on, her own mouth worm had been able to reach the gore. As Jesse attended to a grateful Irma who rumbled her approval, Kim returned the act of mutual preening. As Kim finished cleaning her husband, Jesse finished his own chore and kissed the tip of Irma's snout causing her to close her eyes as the scales on her neck lifted excitedly.

A sudden roar of pain caused them to break contact at the same moment. Jesse felt panic rise in his stomach as he realized he felt what seemed to be a boa constrictor wrapped around his leg. Looking down he saw the end of a thick black tail. As he traced it to its origin he saw one of Kim's knee joints buried into the girth of the appendage. Behind her, Tom was swearing madly, and whipping back and forth like a chained dog. The tail unraveled and Kim released the pressure she was exerting on it. The noticeably compressed limb retracted rapidly to where the owner was able to lick it soothingly while glaring imminent death at the near victim.

Exasperated, Irma began upbraiding her father.

Dad, how many times have I told you? I love Jesse and he loves me. I do not know what your problem is with him. He is even going to school to be a god damned architect! Stop trying to kill my future mate! Stop this contrived I will scare the son-in-law away from my daughter horseshit!

Tom raised the tip of his tail to point at his eye and then pointed it at Jesse and drew it across his neck. Kim's wing came up under his chin knocking his head skyward as they fell to squabbling once again.

Irma snarled at her father's recalcitrance but whispered out of the side of her mouth to her intended. "Just don't be alone with him from now on. I know you survived his attempt on you when you were both hunting. But now heee could kill you by stepping on you and pass it off as ahhh believable accident."

Jesse turned ashen as the reality of his new precarious situation set in. The only thing keeping him alive being Irma's love and Kim's favor. He could deal with a near hunting 'accident' that Kim had saved him from. But he wasn't too sure how to act around a hostile future father-in-law that now weighs more than three horses. And has claws, and teeth, and a prehensile tail, and wings, and teeth, and claws. But just to make sure, he mentioned the claws and teeth to himself once more.

Kim finished their fight by kicking into Tom's belly flipping him over her head as she held onto his forelegs. Using their combined momentum she tumbled after him and pinned him to the ground with his neck seized in her jaws. He went limp in submission and she released her hold on him after whipping her neck back and forth shaking him wildly with a strangled squalling noise.

"You are to leave Jesse Pinkman alone from this point forward. He still has a part to play in the future." Thumper interjected as the wild melee died down between the wedded couple.

Tom pouted visibly as his wings fell to the ground.

"Now is the time for you to exercise your wings. Pick them off the soil/ground/Earth/loam and raise them over your head. You as well Irma, and Kim."

The three of them began flapping their wings. The two herpetologists got as close as they could as the 15 meter growths were being raised and then brought to the ground. For five minutes this went on as some of the less interested wandered off. The twins to play with the dogs. The soldiers to either wander off to patrol the edge of the forest. Or to go back inside to play video games or something or another. Jesse sat on the patio and talked with Alex as he watched his beloved flapping her wings steadily with no signs of tiring. Neither did the collegiate researchers tire in their persistent documentations.

Kim startled her companions by suddenly rearing back onto her haunches, crouching upon coiled legs she kicked herself four meters into the air. Flapping her wings wildly in a discordant pattern until she reached the peak of the barn roof. The blast this kicked up blew almost every human behind her clean over. Landing clumsily, she spread her wings out and whipped her tail back and forth as she roared her triumph towards all those turning their eyes upwards.

"I rule above all of yuuu! First to fly, you fucking dirty nasty legsss!"

She had certainly nailed a truly heroic pose. Like nothing this world had ever seen before. Clutching to the roof crown with twenty talons there were visible stress fractures beneath each of her hands and feet with spread wings. After shaking herself out, Kim began sweeping her sails through a much broader arc coming down well below herself. Brian watched, with some newly sourced binoculars, the size of her enormous musculature working in rhythm to flex the outspread arms, fingers, and membranes sprouting from her dorsal side.

From below her, she could hear the piercing whistles of her Husband and Daughter calling out to her to take it easy on the structure. Their vocal modulations easily carrying through the wind gusts filling the yard, as the twins ran about wildly in amazement at their mother's leap into the air. Kim was not done yet with impressing the others though. Her wing beats began to grow in frequency as stress began to accumulate on the roof before she let go. With the lift generated by her fervid exertion as soon as she unclenched her talons she began to rise above the roof of the barn.

Honey? I do not think that that is a very good idea. Tom called out anxiously. Thumper did not seem to think... The rest of his warning was lost in the terrified shriek Kim gave out. This was due to her uneven wing beats becoming so unsynchronized that her wings lost lift and she spiraled into the ground with a heavy thud.

"No... I do not think you three are ready to fly yet."

Kim groaned while straightening herself out, and began to climb up the side of the barn to try again. At least until Irma and Tom wrestled her to the ground while she squalled loudly about needing to get back on the horse.

Everyone knows you are able to get back on the horse Kim. There is no one here that you need to impress with how many times you can slam your head into the ground and get back up.

My pride is on the line!

You have already beaten us into the air have you not? What else are you trying to achieve?

She stopped struggling against the rest of her family who relaxed in turn. Following this, she hummed thoughtfully and looked away shyly while scraping at the ground. Suddenly she looked back at them and said unexpectedly.

When I was a little girl I always dreamed about being able to fly okay? Okay! Did you not think it was weird that I always wanted to be first out the door on free jumps?

Well... Tom began, while backing away from his wife a little, who looked at him with a question on her snout. I always just thought you were crazy like that.

Crazy... Like... That... She returned, accenting each word with a thump of her tail. Tom crouched low and drew all his more vulnerable appendages in against his body protectively.

Well? It is not like you ever told me about your childhood dream! What was I supposed to think about someone who tried to go out the door head first even on static line jumps?

Kim began stalking towards her husband while he backed up trying not to trip over his own tail. She darted her head forward in a threating manner, but stopped half a meter shy of ramming her head into his. Then, unexpectedly, she crossed her eyes and stuck her long tongue out to the side.

Crazy like this?

Tom snorted in amusement and raised his wings around his wife while she walked into his embrace. Suddenly they both halted and raised their heads to look at each other directly before bending their heads down to look at Thumper with wild eyed panic in their gazes.

"Your developing children are fine. But they will not be if you continue on as before. Normal flight will not endanger your offspring. Now, will you heed my lessons? Or do you wish to do things as you want? This is your decision."

Kim and Tom relaxed once their worst fears had been confirmed as not having come to pass. Kim nodded and rubbed her stomach with a hind leg and wordlessly conveyed her apologies to her unborn children. Tom rubbed noses with her one more time before they took their places to continue wing exercises. Almost continuously for the remainder of the afternoon they continued building both endurance and muscular coordination. Even in their raw state on day one of their training the display of their abilities was impressive. At one point they flapped without pause for three hours. But ultimately, as the sun began to make its daily journey to the western horizon, Thumper told the others that their session would continue tomorrow.

Irma, Kim, and Tom fell to the ground complaining to each other and the world in general about the soreness radiating from their protesting chest and shoulder muscles.

"The amount of food you have eaten this morning will be more than adequate to repairing the micro-tears and fatigue incurred during today and tomorrow's training. You will be ready to repeat these motions tomorrow, and by the evening you will be ready for the next stage in your training."

Brian and Serena ran forward to begin feeling over the muscles of Irma together. Using the knowledge Brian had gotten from observing Kim earlier, they obviously had a more accurate idea of how their physiology was designed to fly. The gentle tracing of the muscles used to move the wings from their anchor points on the bottom of their pronounced chests up to the large mass of muscle built up above the joint between wing and body.

Soon enough, they were joined by Jesse as he used a small block of wood to rub out Irma's sore muscles. She thanked him for this attention by nudging him with her nose lifting him off the ground until he lay supported on her muzzle as she looked at him. Laying on her schnozzle he ran his hand over her brow as she set him down again. Jesse resumed rubbing her muscles while Irma luxuriated in the feeling of the massage after her day of exercise.

Tom and Kim looked on jealously, and then turned their heads to look at Alex hopefully.

He raised his eyebrow incredulously. "Oh sure, let me just jump right to giving you both a rubdown. Allll 25 meters of both of you. Why don't you get your own children to do it? They've had enough energy to run laps around the barn all day. I'm sure they could give you your own massage."

Kim lifted her head to the sky and gave a whistling call, the twins came running from inside the barn with their dogs following along behind them. The dogs ran forward to sniff at Tom who lowered his head to greet them as they licked his nose expectantly, he nudged one of them in return, knocking the dog over, which then bounced back up to give a play bow and bark at its hulking scaly owner before tearing off.

"Yes mommy?"

"Could yuuu two get a couple blocks of wood and give us a massage like Jesse isss with Irma, please? Mommy and Daddy are really sore from flapping all day long."

"Okie dokie." Lucy grabbed Luke's arm and ran back into the barn to look for some scrap wood. They returned just a couple minutes later as Tom and Kim lay leaning against each other while talking about how it felt to swing limbs that they had grown only six weeks before. Flopping onto their sides, with wings stretched across the ground. They modestly covered their sexes with their hind legs while their young human children haphazardly went to town giving them much needed treatment for DOMS. Both of them giving long groans of relief as the wooden blocks broke the tension and increased blood flow to the recovering flexors.

After an hour of this all three of the changed family had thoroughly melted into contented puddles of scales that were more than half asleep and issuing gentle whistling snores where they lay upon the soft grass of the yard. Alex, and the remainder of the soldiers had long since wandered off into the house. Meanwhile Brian and Serena had retreated to the patio with their video recorder as they continued to scribble notes while watching the activities in the back lawn.

Thumper cleared its throat to gather their attention again. "You should go to sleep", it began.

"We werrr, dick!"

It continued, but only after shifting restlessly for a moment with twitching movements of its head. "But before you do, as you have requested it is time for you to know your job/career/profession/occupation for the next several years. You will be tasked by me to begin searching for those that have undergone their transition and become lost within the new impulses and urges of their bodies. They have become, in a word, feral. Feral, but not beyond help. Many of these individuals have attachments from their previous lives that can help them recover their faculties. The three of you working in concert will be able to subdue any children of the egg, no matter their size."

"Well." Kim said. "That is all well and good. But to be more practical we need to do something that can make usss money. We, can hunt and survive outdoors, but my youngest children cannot."

"Many of these individuals have had sizable rewards posted for their safe return. Unfortunately, for these families and friends the posters they have set up are useless as they can only show pictures of what they had previously looked like. Which is where you three come in. It will serve a larger purpose in bringing these individuals back so that they can perform the acts that I have chosen them to perform in the future."

Irma raised a wing in objection. "If their pictures rrreee worthlesssss how do we find them?

"Flight and your improved sense of smell and sight."

"Wyyyy can't they use dogsss to find them."

"I would've thought that that was obvious. They do not have their human mannerisms impeding them. They can already fly. Conventional tracking is impossible."

Tom objected this time. "How dooo yu expect usss to smell them from the air?"

"You are making the mistake that the creatures you now are will closely match those of this world in many critical ways. One of those being the construct of your olfactory senses. Tell me, what do you think one of the principal functions of your pronounced noses are? You have olfactory neurons and cilia lining the entirety of those sinus passages. Further differing you from the biota of this world you have several folds within your nares, vastly increasing the available surface area. Additionally the respective cerebral sub lobe is much larger, proportionately, than in your former mammalian existence. Your sense of smell is quite adept. You will be able to smell another child of the egg from over a kilometer. That is in addition to the phenomenal sight that you now possess as well. You will easily be able to see a creature your size from many kilometers. Haven't you ever given it any thought prior to my explanation how easily you have found prey for yourselves? How many deer and elk do you presume to live in these woods? So many that you can find them at will within an area 15 minutes across on the ground? I think not. You have smelled them out."

No sooner than Thumper had completed this exposition than Brian and Serena were peering into Irma's eyes and nostrils with tiny pen lights. The overwhelmed female reared backwards and snorted heavily at them blowing Serena on to her ass due to the proximity of her face to the exhalation. "What the fuck!" she bellowed while snorting out of her nose again and again. She began to paw at her offended senses before settling back to all fours after her unwelcome surprise.

Assholes

But there was no point in reprimanding them. Already the two of them had retreated a short distance and begun scribbling madly in field notebooks lost to the outside world. Irma used the point of her tail to knock the notebooks out of their hands and onto the ground. Without a break in their conversation they picked them up and resumed their notations.

"It is time for you to sleep now. You will need your rest." Thumper admonished.

Fine, mother. Kim chirped at the sentient computer. She called her twins over to her as she and Tom wished them goodnight. They brought their heads down to receive goodnight hugs from them both. But before Luke and Lucy departed to go up to the house they kissed their parents on the snouts as they exchanged avowals of love for each other. Kim 'kissed' them both in return leaving their hair tangled messes. The twins departed as Tom and Kim looked on with the same wistful expressions that they had had every night since their change.

Irma watched them with a heavy heart, even as Jesse laid his hand on her nose to comfort her as she lost herself in her thoughts. Irma began to realize in her own mind that she would never know how much it pained her parents to be so different from their children, her brother and sister. How much it still hurt them, and very well might always do so. She felt a gentle caress of her scales which brought her out of her brooding.

Will you stay with me until I sssleep?" She asked her Jesse.

"Can you say that again love? I didn't understand the first part, it sounded like a whistle to me."

"Pleease stay with me until I sleep." She asked again.

"Of course I will. Do you want me to stay here at your house for the night? I can even sleep out here with you. I still have all my camping stuff from my last trip."

Irma shyly turned her head away from him. "W...would you? Iiii'd like that."

Bringing his hand up the side of her neck he gently moved her lowered head back to face him and held her snout in his hands to kiss one more time. "Of course I will Irma, you don't have to act embarrassed. I would do anything for you."

Her tail began wagging back and forth as she rubbed her nose against his cheek, almost knocking him over before he left to get his sleeping bag.

Kim and Tom heaved themselves to their paws yawning widely as they displayed the length of their tongues along with their savage dental arrangement. With eyes almost completely lidded with fatigue they reentered the den they had made in the barn. Even though the door and one wall were partially destroyed there was still a close, intimate, feeling to the darkened barn. Inside there was a large collection of outdoor pillows and recliner pads with tough tear resistant covers that Alex had acquired from every big box store in Coeur d'Alene. This was just barely large enough for all three of them. On top of that, they were on the verge of becoming too large to remain in the barn as it was, even with the interior unfinished and wide open except for the storage room off to the side and the stairs to another.

For tonight however Irma nudged a collection of pillows a bit apart and curled up on them to await the return of her love. Kim and Tom wound themselves together on the much larger pad of the remaining pillows, while Thumper curled up by itself against the wall. Jesse returned and gasped loudly in sudden alarm when he walked into the dark interior of the barn to be confronted by four sets of glowing eyes. With their black scales the entirety of the rest of their bodies were completely invisible.

Only the fact that he knew Irma's eyes were blood red now allowed him to identify which pair of eyes was her. Carefully shuffling to her in the dark, mindful that he was being watched by the parents and another creature still of unknown origin to him, he laid out his sleeping bag on the pillows next to her flank. Taking off his shoes, socks, and shirt, he climbed into the bag. Irma laid her head down next to his where he could put a reassuring hand upon it. She then relaxed the muscles holding her wings to her back and stretched one over her head and Jesse to rest upon the ground. Under this cover the low rumble of her speech and Jesse's much quieter one could be heard as they conversed in their own private world.

As the night wore on, this conversation, and the one between husband and wife, gradually wound down until there was only one left awake in the barn. Serena, who sat in a chair off to the side of the entrance so she wouldn't be silhouetted by the moonlight. As she sat there with one of the soldier's NVGs mounted in a skull crusher she took notes in a manner that could only be described as creepy. It was only hours later that she finally crept away to begin her own night's rest in the house. At last the only thing left to break the tranquility of the night were the low whistling snores of the three large and one tiny reptilian creatures.