Dynamics Pt. 02

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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A week and a half later, Mark found himself navigating his car to the staff entrance of the SCA tournament grounds, set up within the larger fairgrounds. There seemed to be other events on there at the same time, beyond the organisation that Mercy worked with, though his eyes could not flick to them, considering everything, at that time.

As much as the feline was keen to see his sister again, it was hard for him to concentrate while he got there, shaking his head lightly, nerves getting the better of him. He grunted and made an apologetic gesture in the direction of a steward who was looking at him very oddly, but he had printed and stuck the staff friend pass to the windscreen of his car that she had sent to him. He'd just point it out and Mercy's staff number if anyone asked about it.

"Where to go, where to go..." He muttered to himself, turning his car radio down so that he could see better, even though that made no sense at all -- to anyone. "Hm..."

It was quite a large fairground, however, and she had not given him directions to where her tent was set up -- which was apparently not where her van was. That was problematic.

"Excuse me? Excuse me!"

He grumbled in the back of his throat, hating having to call over someone's attention. The stoat scurried over, flicking his eyes over the car and clearly not recognising it.

"Yes?" He said when Mark rolled the window down a little more. "What's up?"

"I'm a bit lost," he confessed. "Do you know where Mercy is? Cougar?"

"Ah -- yes!"

The stoat smiled, recognising why he was there, at least.

"So, you want to go down there," he said, pointing past a line of trucks that had to be transporting things for the shows. "Take a left at the green caravan and you can park up there. You'll have to walk over to where the tents are pitched but Mercy has a round one with a flag on top. Red and yellow, two crossed swords on it. You can't miss it."

He thanked the stoat and headed off, carefully, not wanting to get in anyone's way. It was not the kind of space that the cougar was at all used to taking up. His tail curled uncomfortably close to his body as he headed out of the car, locking it up, sure that it would be safe there with so many others around. After all, Mercy trusted then and, well...he trusted Mercy. That was good enough for him, even if it was a new environment.

Her tent was small but cosy, the flag extending from the point at which the tent poles crossed over the top, though it had been an awfully long time indeed since Mark had been camping. That, in fact, might have been with Mercy before. He wondered briefly why it was that she needed the van and the tent -- though was interrupted by his sister before he could follow the thought through.

"Mark!"

She lunged for him, a blur of lighter-coloured fur than what was layered softly over his body. She wrapped her arms around him before he'd even gotten a chance to take her in and Mark grunted, realising one thing that he had not remembered before.

Mercy was strong.

Like, really strong.

So strong, in fact, that she was no longer even allowed, since the end of high school a few years back, to use the grip strength checker things at the gym. He remembered that, but he had forgotten just how hard her body was, wearing only a vest top that revealed her muscled arms, the swell of her biceps tightening around him as he grunted, squeezed too tightly to be comfortable.

"Unff... Mercy..."

He could have been asking for Mercy or literally for mercy itself. The cougar, however, set him down with a grin, ever so slightly taller than him but appearing much bigger than him in that moment. She was just so much bulkier than him, her abs hard as she clasped his forearms, as if she didn't quite want to let him get away from her.

"It's so good to see you again!" She said with feeling, tail flicking back and forth as if the depth of her emotion could not be displayed through any other means. "We've got to not let it go so long again, I'll call you whenever I'm in the area, for real this time."

He smiled.

"You sound convinced," he shot back, teasing her. "And you haven't even spent a minute with me yet."

"Well, I don't need to," she said, as sure of herself than ever. "I have you and that's all I need."

He glanced at her, suddenly feeling...just a bit uncomfortable. Not in the way that he would have been while meeting for more awkward reasons, if there had ever been any bad blood between them, no... It was if there was something hot pooling and coiling in the pit of his stomach, a flooding of fluttering twisting (yeah, he knew that didn't really make sense) that would have made more sense if he was talking to...well, anyone else.

Not with his sister.

It was just a little bit awkward, he told himself, trying to shake it off, not to let it bother him all that much. Mark laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, though it was hard to forget just how thick and muscled her body was when it had been pressed up against his in a hug.

"Wow," he said, taking a half-step back to put just a little bit more space between them. "You've changed, Mercy, damn... You were muscled before when you were doing all the martial arts stuff, but nothing like this!"

She had grown and developed into herself and her body, though that honestly made sense considering the kind of work and labour that she had to do daily.

"So, how's things been going here?" He asked, moving things on quickly, ignoring the stirring of unease in the pit of his stomach. "It looks great!"

"Yeah, it's going really well," Mercy said with a smile. "It's been really busy but I don't have a show until tomorrow, so it was a good day for you to come over. You get to see me fight!"

Some may have said that with a sense of being abashed but, well...Mercy had never been like that. Maybe she had, in a way, been too like their mother, always forward, though Mark did not look as much like her, not really. He didn't know, as their father had left so very long ago, that he was the spitting image of Tom, but, well...

Things would always come with context that may not be readily available, as was the way of things.

"I'd love to watch you," Mark said sincerely, really meaning it. "It must be crazy to fight like that... I know I could never do it, I've still not got enough muscle on me. I don't really need it."

"Nah, you look great as you are," she said. "You don't have to worry about things like that, seriously. As long as everyone's healthy, why bother or worry about things like that? You've got a swimmer's body."

She tilted her head as if considering something.

"Do cougars even swim? Like, you know... Non-anthro ones, the ones that aren't like us?"

He wrinkled his muzzle, shuddering.

"Uh... I don't know about that, I never liked swimming lessons," he said. "They were always... Ugh, even after showering it takes so long to dry off!"

"That's because you're too lazy to air dry," she shot back at him, giving him a friendly shove with her shoulder that sent him staggering faintly. "That takes longer but it's soooo much less effort!"

"Yeah, because I don't want the whole place to reek of wet fur, you know!"

It was like things had never changed between them as they laughed and joked and he tried his best to ignore whatever that strange tension had been in the pit of his stomach, something that the cougar had not felt in a very long time indeed. It was not something at all that he needed to pay attention to, he reasoned with himself, no... It was just nerves from seeing Mercy again after so long, that was all, nothing more and nothing less.

So, that would be okay too, he was sure of it.

She introduced him to some of the other SCA members that she knew closely too, though Mark wasn't sure, after everything, that he would remember their names. He'd always been so bad at names!

"Hey, Stan," she said, cupping her fingers around her muzzle to call over a big, rather burly lion. "This is Mark! Come say hi!"

Mark swallowed hard, not wanting to be the centre of attention but, well, that was not a role that Mercy had ever really had any trouble with. The lion smiled easily, striding over with an easy roll to his gait, as if he was eating up the ground with every step that he took.

"Hey!" He said warmly, his tone thick like honey. "Mercy said you were coming by, we didn't even know that she had a boyfriend for a while!"

Boyfriend? His ear twitched. What were they talking about? He shot Mercy a pointed look and caught a smirk back off his sister. She had to be doing something for a reason, most likely a joke.

"Oh, yeah, yeah... I can understand that," Mark said, playing along with a small smile on his lips as he shook the lion's paw, conscious of the fact that the lion was a few inches taller than him and much broader across the shoulders. "Things got so busy after moving for both of us, but I'm glad to be able to see things here now. The show looks amazing!"

"Thanks!" The lion grinned more widely, a little more relaxed in his posture. "Are you coming to watch the performance tomorrow?"

"Yeah, definitely!" Mercy cut in, answering for him. "We're both in the heavy armour division so it should be a great round."

"It'll be weird seeing you like that," Mark mused. "I've not seen it, you didn't even send a picture."

"Oh, there'll be plenty of those," Stan said. "They always take promo shots and put them online, we'll get you the link to the gallery. Our photos aren't as good as what the professional camera person takes."

"There's not all that much time to take photos either when we're busy," Mercy concurred. "But, yeah, I'll share those with you, Mark."

He hadn't gotten used to the cadence of her voice again, how some of the things that Mercy said came off as a little short, but that was purely because the cougar simply saw no reason to add lots of extra words when all that she had said was good enough. She'd never been one for small talk either, even then trying to focus on specific subjects.

They moved on and she introduced him to a rabbit who looked to be a light combat demonstrator with a leather jerkin over a medieval-like shirt that Mark did not know the name of. She was light and lithe, though Mark was sure that she too could have been more than lethal if she wanted to be. All that they did there, of course, was for demonstration, performance and show purposes though, not to hurt anyone. Still, if an intruder broke into her home in the dead of the night and attacked her... Mark could not see any reason not to use any weapons at her disposal.

That time, Mercy was louder, stepping forward and taking him by the opposite shoulder as she drew him in against her side.

"Hey, Tina," she said, her white whiskers bristling lightly. "This is my boyfriend, Mark. You know, the guy I talked about?"

He glanced at her. He had definitely heard "boyfriend" that time. What the hell was Mercy on? Yet the cougar only shot him a grin and a sidelong look, prompting him to keep quiet. He remembered those looks from back when they had been up to something a little sneaky and they'd wanted to remain under the radar of their mother.

She steamrolled over him anyway as she charged on. But he didn't mind her talking for him, not usually, for she always seemed to know what was on his mind anyway... Yet why did everyone seem to think that he was her boyfriend? Did she have a boyfriend who was a cougar that they had mistaken him for?

Yeah... Yeah, that really would have been her sense of humour to run with it as a joke, that made sense. Even if his stomach coiled and twisted uncomfortably, knowing that it was not true.

"Uh..."

"It's so good to meet you, Mark!" The bunny gushed, Tina, grabbing his paw in both of hers and pumping it up and down several times. "Oh, wow, she's been talking about you so much this last week! Don't give me that look, Mercy, you know it's true!"

That had him chuckling lightly, rubbing his arm, trying to find a moment, a bit of relaxation. There was so much energy there! It was nothing at all like his usual more relaxed way of life. Even his work was not usually that frantic, working on his own most of the time, able to get on with things at something akin to his own pace.

"Yeah, Mark's just down for the weekend," the cougar said, brushing over the rabbit's comments. "Are you competing tomorrow too? He's coming to watch!"

"Oh, that's going to be a really good one," Tina effused, bouncing up onto the soles of her feet as if her enthusiasm could not be contained, it just had to come out in some way. "There's a really big crowd booked to come and there are the walk-ins too, Gerome has been advertising it all over social media and the local pages."

Mark wasn't all that comfortable in big crowds, but he was still more than willing to do it for Mercy's sake. Still, he could not shake the weird feeling that he had about Mercy letting everyone go on believing that he was her boyfriend, that was strange...

"Hey..." He had to ask as soon as they were out of Tina's earshot. "Why... You know... Mercy, why does everyone think that I'm your boyfriend?"

The cougar shrugged, suddenly interested in a tapestry that was being hung up under cover, for they had made their way over to where the market stalls were being set up for the following day under tents. The traders seemed to be needing to get a head-start on things, considering that the weekend, most likely, would be packed from dawn to dusk for them. Hopefully, the weather overnight would not be too troublesome for them.

"Oh, it's just a silly thing they do, don't worry about it," she said, the flick of her tail hinting at her evasiveness. "So, you're coming to the tournament, right? I should show you how to get there and put the time in your phone..."

He couldn't, after all, come in the staff entrance if he was going to watch as a spectator the next day. He didn't quite like her answer to him asking about the whole boyfriend thing, though neither could Mark explain why he didn't push back against it as much as he could have.

Just a joke, yeah... That's what he told himself. That was all he had to take from it and, surely, there was no harm in it.

"So... Two in the afternoon?" Mark said, tilting his head to look at the details that Mercy was adding to the calendar on his phone. "I can do that, yeah. But I better head off now, it's getting late. I gotta get back now to come back in the morning, see you, see the show... You know, all that?"

Mercy flicked her tail and all but scoffed at him.

"Don't be silly," she said, as if it was a given already. "You will stay here tonight. Everything's okay, I've got the van and there's a spare air mattress, spare bedding... Everything you need is already here."

Mark hesitated.

"Are you sure? I wasn't planning to stay, I don't have stuff with me..."

"I've got everything you could need here," she repeated, smiling. "Don't worry about it... We'll stay in the tent though, it's going to be easier than squeezing into the van. Kind of...cosy."

Something in Mark muttered that he wouldn't have minded things being cosy, not really. And that was just how Mark found himself being swept up and away in the whirlwind that was Mercy, taken for a ride, even though he didn't mind spending more time with her. Just a little bit of warning would have been nice, right?

In the tent, there was plenty of space and he laid out the bouncy air mattress with a frown, wishing that he had not worn his jeans that day. They would not be all that comfortable to sleep in, though he didn't mind too much sharing an evening meal with her, eating chicken wings and chips from one of the food stalls, though he was sure that they had gotten a pretty big discount from Mercy working there.

Mercy had a narrow cot to sleep on in the tent, the tent set up as if she was a knight, though with a few modern comforts too, like a fully-charged portable battery for her phone and tablet computer. There were a few books in a basket towards the back too, though he had not taken her to be all that much of a reader when they had both lived together. The difference there was that Mercy had more free time there, clearly, and less access to technology, when she needed to keep it both charged and running.

It was a different way of living and one that required a little more sense paid to how an individual was using their resources. Privately, Mark marvelled at how she had been able to make all that work for herself. It was truly impressive.

He had protested a little, of course, about how he didn't think that he should have been staying there, that he didn't want to impose on her space... Mark didn't think that Mercy heard him at all. He was going to stay the night, whether he was totally on board with it or not.

"Hey..."

Lying on the airbed, the base of it squeaking faintly as Mark shifted his weight, he called her attention.

"Hm?"

Mercy didn't sound sleepy at all. On the contrary, she sounded completely wide awake, as if she didn't usually sleep that early. But didn't she have to be up early in the morning too to get prepared?

Some things did not have answers at that moment, no. But that was okay too, for all would be revealed in good time.

"Did you get a boyfriend then?" He asked quietly. "Like all the others thought."

He didn't think it was a joke. Or, if it had been a joke, there was more to it than what he had anticipated.

"No... Well..." Mercy seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts before answering. "I had a few guys, yes... A girl too. You knew I swung both ways though."

"Huh... I always thought you would end up more into femfurs," he confessed, a smile tugging faintly at the feline's lips. "With all the martial arts and stuff, all the sporty things you were into... I don't mean that to be stereotypical but...hm... Maybe I made too many assumptions."

"Heh... Yeah, maybe, but that's alright. You weren't ever a dick about it," she said easily. "I like both, my tastes go back and forth."

There was a pause before Mercy continued.

"What about you? Did you get a girlfriend?"

"Me? Oh, no," he said, a hint of a chuckle in the back of his tone. "I didn't have time. I mean, there was Sarah back in school but I just had a few dates after that, a few hang outs. Nothing really stuck."

"Really?" Her tone grew curious. "Didn't you...you know...have one-night stands and things like that? Friends with benefits?"

Oof...

The conversation was getting rather intimate for him, the sort of thing that, frankly, Mark would have shied away from if he had been given the choice. Yet it felt okay, kind of, to talk about that stuff with Mercy. She was his sister, after all...

Yet others had thought that he was her boyfriend. And there was something more to be dug into there, surely.

"Yeah, I got with a few. They were...okay, but nothing stuck, you know? It just didn't feel right to take into a relationship."

"I get that, I'm about the same," Mercy said. "You need a connection to enjoy sex, I think. And a relationship can't be just going out for food, going to the movies, doing this and doing that... Even with someone who's into the same things as you. You can do all that and still be as lacking in connection as ever..."