Harlequeen

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.

****

Harlequeen Backstory

Standing on the edge of the cliff as the wind picked up, a raging howl tearing at his clothes, Harlequeen closed his eyes. It would be so easy to fall, although he knew that his raven form would save him, if he so chose to hurl his body to the wind and waves, crashing on the rocks below. They could shatter a body or lift it up but neither of those things were something that the anthropomorphic squirrel cared about in that moment on the Scottish cliffs, an outfit of red and white diamonds clinging to his body as if it too was afraid of flying away, although he could not literally take flight himself as a squirrel. Once, he had worn robes but that was another life and a person that he no longer was.

How the times had changed.

It was necessary to remember what form he was in, opening and closing his fingered paws reflexively as if to remind himself. It was like driving a car when one forgot what gear they were in, needing to check quickly, just to reassure oneself that everything was still fine and okay.

But things were not okay. Thing were very much not okay. She'd said she owed him a debt, the witch who'd uncovered so much for him in a life that did not feel like his own, but... Harlequeen shivered, holding his arms out and away from his body, just like wings. But it was his life. He was there, wasn't he? And he couldn't do anything about all the lives he'd felt he'd lived, starting off as just a red squirrel, at least in the life into which he'd been reborn.

Before that... The squirrel shook his head, snapping his arms back in and turning about smartly on his heel, demonstrating incredibly poise on the edge of such danger. It was as if the wind didn't even affect him, as much as it screamed and dragged at his attire, striving to rip it from his form. The squirrel grimaced as he stepped into the protective cover of the trees, the age-old pines stretching comforting branches overhead as he padded over a bed of dead, brown needles. It was better to be out of the storm but he smoothed his paws down over his clothing, imagining in the corner of his eye that they were the flicker of Rasputin's robes...yet could he really say that they had ever been one and the same?

The robes he, or that other person, had worn then, so very, very long ago... Those held history. So much history. Well, they were not from one of the monks that had made his waking life a living hell - ironically so, considering that they were supposed to be in a house of god. Bringing back both good and bad memories (more bad than good), the robes did their job of covering his modesty when he was not permitted to go about in just his fur, but it wasn't about making himself a part of his past or even a better part of his future, just making sure he fit in enough to do the things he wanted to in life. Yet his new life, his better life, made the jester's wear of diamonds all the more appropriate to move forward into something far better than the atrocities of the past.

And a little connection even further back, back all the way to Grigori Rasputin, although that name had long ago ceased to mean something to him. He knew, of course, what his past had been and that he himself should not have been, the squirrel scratching the back of his neck as if to reassure himself that he was, actually, in fact, right there, where he was supposed to be. But his past did not mean that he had to consider it too deeply when so many lives had been held close to his heart and soul since, one heart and one soul moving between different bodies as was the way of a shape shifter. Yet even time seemed to have so little meaning to him after such reincarnation, the afterlife stripped from him as he returned to mortal bounds with just a little more to play with.

To play... Harlequeen scoffed, his attire falling from him as he leapt into the form of a pine marten, sliding and slinking between the trees as if in search of prey. But he had already fed as an anthro, although it was sometimes difficult to compare the terms of eating between acting out the part of a wild animal, those Scottish traits that he could take onto his own head and shape, and the act of eating as an anthro, the squirrel, of course, being his favoured form. Once, something like that would never have been an issue to him, Harlequeen having once, of course, been both boy and man, but things changed and, well, life and death had not been kind to one lonely soul.

The pine marten's steps quickened into an urgent patter and, just like that, he turned into another shape: that of a wildcat slipping over him like a second skin. For none of his forms felt as if they were his true form, as comfortable as the squirrel was to him. He liked the little squirrel too, the one that didn't go on two legs, as that felt...right, in a way. Yet it wasn't him, not truly him, even as he leapt up a tree, scaling it easily as a wildcat, his claws gripping the bark. That form was designed to climb and jump and stalk, to survive against the odds, which was perhaps a fitting testament to all the trials he had gone through. For Harlequeen had survived through death itself, even if it had not been entirely at his own jurisdiction or of his own doing.

It is time.

No. He clenched his teeth and put on a turn of speed, shifting into a Golden Retriever, although he could not allow his tongue to loll out as his tail tucked down anxiously over his rump. The nuances of that form were more familiar to him, the predator not needing to hide its emotion as much as the prey animals of the squirrel and others, though the wildcat was so quietly slender and sly that it was a wonder that he understood the true meaning of what it was to be one in the first place. Perhaps he didn't. He sped up, legs bunching and driving him on in long, loping strides that ate up the ground.

You can't run from me.

But he could, even if not for long. And he needed that time to himself to think, things moving far too quickly. Yet he could still feel her will wrapping itself around him, drawing him back, back to a land and a life that he really didn't want to return to, regardless of how it called him. His life in reincarnation was not his own and he sped up further still, lungs heaving and pulsing, striving to grab at breath to little to no avail. But what did breath mean to one who should have already died?

Water - he plunged. The cold barrier closed over his skull as his canine form twisted and floundered, panic setting in just like it had so many years ago - how many years ago had it been really since that fateful night? - water filling his lungs. Yet he was so close to the bottom and he kicked off it, canine hind paws flicking through the silt and debris of the riverbed as he flung himself back to the surface, terror driving him on.

Drowning! Drowning! He couldn't drown - not again! He floundered and splashed, hauling himself out of the river with a gasp, reverting to the form of an anthropomorphic squirrel as his chest heaved, eyes wide and desperate. But he was not drowning - he was out and alive and there was no spirit in sight, their red eyes still burned wantonly into his memory. It was not for the sake of any sordid lust that those eyes hungered for him, his despicable soul twisted beyond all compare in the realm between mortality and the afterlife, but the need for a soul that would, one day, be returned to the darkness from whence it came.

And there was nothing the squirrel could do about that, fleeing from a fate that was inevitable. Shakily, he shook out his clothes, finding them back on his body and his fur perfectly dry as if his sudden shock in falling into the river had not even happened. It was a shame that the drowning, or near drowning, had happened all that time ago. He would have lived a life and died a death and that would have been that. He wouldn't have had a witch whispering after him, seeking payment for something that he should never have bought to begin with.

You have a debt to pay, Harlequeen.

And so he did, even if it was a debt that he didn't want to pay, one given and then, of course, some form of payment demanded in return. She had seemed so nice, back then, but even the most pleasant of people could turn, something which he should have learned so very far back in his past that he wondered if all the abuses of his life had made him immune to them.

Maybe they made him stronger. Maybe they made him weaker. Maybe neither. Who was to tell?

Drawing himself up, he folded his paws before his stomach, striving to ignore just how his heart pounded.

"Where are you?"

Everywhere.

"Do you think I do not know your kind by now?" He snapped, fear clawing at his throat, threatening to close around it. "Show yourself, if you want any kind of debt to be repaid by me."

Yet she fell silent, the voice and presence still there even if it was not vocalised. A wicked glint rose in his eye and he shook his head, paws moving to create the illusion of a trinket: a heart-shaped locket with a ruby inside. Of course, it was not real so the ruby glowed as if with an inner light, Harlequeen, at least, momentarily pleased with his prowess, even if it was gleaned on the edge of what many would have, very justly, called insanity. But what fun was insanity if he could not take back control and humour for himself once in a while?

Offering it to the night, the shadows beneath the trees long and forlorn as twilight slunk on, its tail tucked very firmly between its legs, Harlequeen smiled, not showing his teeth.

"Will this pay a debt?"

The silence was answer enough

"Ah, you would not take an illusion?" A wave of his paw and the trinket was gone, although it had never truly been. "I had thought such a woman as yourself would like it. And you are asking payment for a debt that is but a farce. An illusion is appropriate...is it not?"

The only illusion here is you.

And that was true, very much so, even if it was something that he didn't want to admit it. A deal with a spirit rendered him mortal and yet less than, memories shifting and unreliable as he shook away the thought of unlocking someone's manacles, once upon a time, rubbing their wrists. That had been another time and another life and not the life of the one who was haunting him so sweetly now, coming to claim what was truly hers, he supposed, although it was hardly something he was willing, at a certain point, to give.

His deer form pulled at his mind, drawing him lightly into the form of a stag and he recalled looking down the barrel of a hunter's gun in another brush with death that had been too close to ironic for his comfort. It suited him though, the quarry pursued by one that he could not see, and he lifted his head high, antlers brushing some low-hanging branches. A rainfall of crystalline droplets fell over him, standing on top of his fur rather than soaking in, although the time had come to immerse himself as he never had before.

Harlequeen took a deep breath, steadying his nerve. Maybe once he did what she wanted of him, he would be free to live his life. One of his lives. Perhaps.

Would he ever be a man again? Or was the squirrel who he now truly was?

I am waiting.

It had begun. And so much rested on him.

It was time to get to work.