FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Thanks for all the comments people. It was frankly amazing. I was getting more comments than votes at one stage! >.@ it's really pushing me to write. Thanks.

C'mon people! I want to see my name one day get on to the recommended reading list! But that can't happen unless you all start submitting stories for review! So get cracking. One email. Just one. And it can make a world of difference to an aspiring writer.

To gain a pokemon...to lose your heart part 3

"Greg?" His mum asked softly, standing hesitantly at the door, watching him pack, his ninetails standing besides him and watching curiously as he folded clothes and placed them in a bag.

"Yes?" He asked without turning around, focussing on packing. Bugsy was sitting down in the kitchen, idly rolling his loaned pokeball back and forth across the wooden table, staring at it without really seeing it.

"Are you leaving again?" She asked bluntly, despite the fact that it quite obvious that he was.

Greg sighed heavily, put the last of the folded clothes in the bag and closed it with finality, turning around and sitting down on the bed, patting the blankets besides him, motioning for Cindyr to hop up as well.

"Yes." He said, after a few moments of stroking Cindyr's luxuriously soft fur.

He knew what was coming. She would try to convince him to stay. It had been horrible on the day he had left. His mother hadn't wanted him to leave at all. She had wanted him to stay home and become a woodcutter like his father. But he had fought her down, telling her that it was his life and that he was going to do with it what he wanted, not what she wanted.

"Your ninetails..." She started, startling Greg, who was sure that she would have taken the opportunity to try and make him stay. "It was howling yesterday...why was that?" She asked.

Greg picked up one of her long tails, flipping it over so that a certain randomly chosen spot was exposed.

"She had a thistle in her tails. We were in the garden yesterday and she must have brushed up against the bush in the corner. It was completely tangled in her tails, and getting it out required pulling out a lot of her fur." He explained, and then motioned his mother closer, showing her Cindyr's tail and saying, "See?"

"Oh I see." She said, although she really didn't. "Was this before or after she pinned you, kissed you, and dragged you upstairs?" She asked evenly, staring at him speculatively.

Greg didn't reply. He just stared at his knee, as if something intensely interesting was perched there, as his hand continued to stroke slowly across Cindyr's tails.

"I take it that there wasn't any thistle? And the howling I, and the rest of the town, heard? It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. You once told me that it was your life to control...I'm just trying to stop you from making a big mistake." She said, and then left without waiting for a response.

Greg just sat there for a long time, unconsciously stroking Cindyr while he mulled over what she had said. Was he making a mistake? Could he ever be truly happy with a pokemon? Could she ever be truly happy with him?

* * *

The three of them set out the next morning, after a breakfast when no one talked, a cold, icy silence hanging over the kitchen table.

Cindyr ate her fill of some specialised pokemon food Greg had purchased from the pokecentre when he went to get back the Dratini he had caught. Nurse joy had told him that he should leave her in the pokecentre for a few days, but if he wished, he could take her with him, but only if he left her in the pokeball.

They set out east, hading past the boring entrance to the slowpoke well, and travelling further along, heading for the foreboding entrance to dark cave.

Greg stepped through without hesitation, Cindyr walking besides him, Bugsy a few steps behind, still staring at the pokeball he had been leant.

Greg wondered where Hitan could have gotten to. The townsfolk hadn't seen him, and there weren't all that many places that he could have disappeared to. The townsfolk used nearly all of the tunnels when they had left the well. Old Kurt, who knew the well like the back of his hands, had even explored the area afterwards and found no trace of Hitan or the other trainer. They had both disappeared without a trace.

The interior of dark cave was, as the name suggested, dark. No light permeated very far into the depths of the mountain, and those without a pokemon capable of creating light had no chance at all of finding the exit, or, once they got far enough in, even finding the way out.

Cindyr kept the way lit by illuminating her tails. She used a little trick Greg had never seen before, rubbing her tails together and using some of her pokemon magic to make static electricity build up, the fur of her tails standing on end as electricity arced from strand to strand, lighting up the surrounding area with ghostly blue light.

The cave, although deep, dangerous, and downright creepy, was surprising populated. There were people all over the place. Whether it was just a young trainer seeking their first battle, or the ever ready thrill seeker searching for his next adrenaline fix.

The three ignored the majority of the people, exchanging polite hellos with those who they deemed to be people worthy of respect.

The paths were long and winding, tunnels branching into more tunnels, they in turn leading to giant underground rooms rife with stalagmites and stalactites [for those of you furs who don't know the difference, a stalagmite is a downwards hanging spike, while a stalactite is an upwards pointing one...or vice versa. I forget which one is which but oh well...] dripping with water, pooling on the uneven rock floor, creating puddles, some shallow, while other were of indeterminable depth.

"Greg...what's wrong?" Cindyr asked suddenly, catching him off guard, jolting him out of his intensely thoughtful reverie.

"Nothing." He replied, a little too quickly.

"Don't say nothing. I know that there's something you're not telling me. I can feel it." She said, stopping suddenly and turning towards him. Greg, who had been walking behind her at the time, came very close to tripping over here, but managed to catch himself in time.

Bugsy came up and stood near them.

"Bugsy...can you leave us alone for a few minutes please?" Cindyr asked politely.

Bugsy shrugged and drew a torch from his pack, lighting it with a match and walking ahead. It was obvious that he was no stranger to travel.

"You're instincts aren't that good Cindyr." Greg said. "There's nothing wrong."

"I didn't say that I felt it in my mind. I can feel it in my heart. Don't tell me you haven't felt the bond between us forming. I can feel your emotions as if they were my own." She stated, staring at him. The electricity in her tails lessened a bit, whether by accident or on purpose, it had the effect of deepening the shadows, making Greg's face completely unreadable

Greg knew she was telling the truth. He had been feeling emotions that weren't his for the past few hours.

He looked up at her, inspecting her form as he considered his response. Cindyr waited patiently, her tails spread out in a fanlike shape behind her. The ends of her fur glowed an electric blue, like a neon sign, a beacon in the darkness.

It was several minuted before Greg found the words he was looking for. "How could you ever be happy for me?" he asked.

It was strange. It had taken him minutes to find the right words, when usually it would only take him seconds. And the words themselves were simple, but the meaning behind them was all the more forceful because of it.

"What do you mean?" She asked suspiciously, as if it were a trick question.

"Exactly that." He replied, his face a mask, no emotion colouring his words at all. "How could you ever be truly happy with a human?" He asked.

"But I am happy..." She replied, obviously confused.

"You're happy now...but what about later? After we've exhausted sex. That's the only thing we share. Sex. What happens when we get old? What then? No sex then. No children. I can't give you children, and having another's child inside you would tear me up. What then? How could you be happy with an old man? An old human?" He asked.

"Who told you these things!?" She asked sharply, as if scolding him.

"Does it even matter? How could I ever make you happy!?" He asked, something close to desperation in his voice.

Cindyr opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.

"I can't make you happy. Not truly happy. No pokemon could ever be happy with a human. I can't give you children. The only thing I can give you is sex! That's all! And when I get old, not even that! You'll hate me. Once the sex is gone...I won't have a reason to be around you. You won't have any need of me." He burst out, flinging himself onto the ground in an expression of the lost feeling filling him up, a single tear trailing down a cheek to glisten in the sparkling rays of weak electrical light emanating from the ninetails tails.

"No need of you?" She asked in a voice of calm reason. "I will always have need of you." She stated, but Greg was pretty much beyond hearing her. She walked over to him, hugging him as best as her canine body would allow.

"You'll have no need for me. You wont look at me the same way. I'll just be a hindrance...an old man who has no use. And that'll hurt." He said, staring at her. "I don't want to be hurt..." He said, hugging her fiercely, completely uncertain as to what he wanted to do. He felt lost. As lost a three-log raft in the middle of the storm tossed ocean. He wanted to keep her close, to hold her. But at the same time the voice of reason within him told him to push her away, to avoid the pain that would inevitable be caused to both of them should they continue with the relationship. He grappled with these thoughts, each one just as strong as the other, unable to determine which was the best course of action.

"I won't hurt you...I promise..." She said, resting her furred chin on his shoulder, trying to comfort the human while her own doubts circled themselves through her head.

Could she be truly happy with a human? Was their relationship only based on the sexual desires that they acted upon? And never having pups? That was a thought that tore her up inside. Could she sacrifice her future children for a love that she wasn't sure even existed?

* * *

Sorry for the short chapter people. But I'm too tired to do any more. And no yiff either. Anyway. I might have another up tomorrow if I can wrench myself away from yiffchat and ff8 for long enough to get in some downtime with a keyboard. Just think of this chapter as a prelude to the next one. Not a true chapter as such, but a teaser of things to come, just a chapter to build the plot and sort out a few loose ends. I'll give you something to nibble on while you wait though. The next chapter will feature a battle between Greg's team and an overly angry Lapras. Well I can't read what I'm writing properly anymore. So look for the next chapter tomorrow!