This is a short work of erotic fiction containing furry, or anthropomorphic, characters, which are animals that either demonstrate human intelligence or walk on two legs, for the purposes of these tales. It is a thriving and growing fandom in which creators are prevalent in art and writing especially.
All work is fiction intended for fantasy only, regardless of content, and consent must always be acquired when engaging in any sex act with another adult.
Please note that all characters are clearly over eighteen and written as such in all stories.
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The tiger sighed, perched at the dining room table, though it didn't really feel like "her" house at all, not as yet. It was strange for Gale to be there, the sense of emptiness swallowing her up, the house more of a lodge somewhere between a family home and a gamekeeper's cottage than a house that she would ever have considered actually living in herself, the windows rattling where they no longer fit securely into their frames and the floorboards creaking when Gale moved.
She poured over the contract again, but she had signed it and taken her chance, even if she did not believe it true, studying it with the slits of her feline pupils, tail swinging lazily around the legs of the chair. The house had been left to the last female descendent of her family before the turn of the millennium...why ever that was...by some great grandmother of hers. Gale frowned. What was that -- seven generations back with all the "greats" in there?
"But why leave it to me?"
The empty room had no answer for her, her belongings appearing too small for the aged grandeur of the property that, for its age, was still kept in good condition. Apparently the estate management company that had kept it for so many years had renovated it every ten years or so, though there were still a few things that slipped through the gaps: it was not as if the floors or windows, of course, were going to be replaced every ten years when there was nobody living there and that was something they had assured her could be done in line with the original contract as soon as she made a decision on what she wanted. Gale didn't even have to pay for it.
Yet the house was isolated, down a long, dark driveway with a gated entrance, a heavily wooded park surrounding it so that it appeared entirely cut off from civilisation. It had everything she needed there except for company and, when she had taken the time to attempt to speak to the nearest neighbours about it, not letting on that she was the one who would be moving in from her dinky apartment that cost too much anyway, they had shrugged her off.
"Always feel like I'm being watched up there, just going past the gates," the mouse had said, wringing her paws and eyeing up Gale distrustfully. "It's a strange place... What do you want with it?"
Gale had made up some excuse, some college project, though she was a few years past that. Her interest in curiosities and research, however, had not faded, which was perhaps just one of the reasons that she had been drawn there, eventually, ensuring that all the paperwork was in as good nick as possible with her lawyer first. She didn't want to be caught out, after all...
Gale sighed. There was no sense in pondering and wondering what was going on, especially not on her first night there, the living room light anything but comforting. It was too bright, too glaring, for its surrounding and she only had the stomach for a light meal before retreating to her bedroom and a moderately old-fashioned four-poster bed that still held an air of grandeur around it. It was comfortable enough with a modern mattress, however, that she sank into it in no time, hardly able to believe her strange kind of luck in finding a place to live that, at the very least, meant that her savings would last for a good number of years while she amused herself. In that way, she had time and space to work out just what she wanted to do with her life, which was all that any young femfur so often needed, even with the troubles of the world pressing in so urgently around them.
It was not a huge home by the standards of detached homes that she knew of in more affluent families and friends but it would do for her, more than she needed. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier as she snuggled under the strange sheets that she was sure would become more comfortable and familiar in time, she slipped into a light, fitful slumber.
Those that had said they were being watched in the property, however... They would not have been wrong.
The sentinel stirred. Gale tossed in sleep, the first rays of dawn cutting across to the bed where the curtains had not been drawn the night before. The tigress rubbed her eyes, yawning widely with a stretch that was inherently feline in nature, her blonde hair falling across her face as she grumbled and pushed it back out of the way.
But something was different -- just the one thing. It could not be missed, however, the massive, bound tome sitting on the desk in her bedroom, though she was not sure why she'd set up the desk there when she had enough space to have her own office or study room in the house too. She gave a strangely strangled cry as she jumped up, tangled in the unfamiliar bed sheets, fighting her way through to get to the book, fingerprints darkening the surface where something, or someone, had placed it there.
"What in all hell..."
Gale trailed off. There was no one there to answer her, as much as her heart pounded. But the dust-covered hardback with a finely carved cover told a tale as old as time, surely over five-hundred years old at the very least. Gale gulped, leaning in, hardly daring to touch it, not yet. For it held more secrets than even her research, so far, had illuminated her mind.