I've always been a fur, from when I was a kid and me and my
sister would put blankets in the back of our pants and pretend to 
be skunks. I've always preferred to read books with anthro 
characters, from the Redwall series to Watership Down. I can
still remember the day I  wandered intothe local bookstore, right 
over to the fantasy section (I've always been drawn to it like
 a  magnet to a fridge). There was Mattimeo, 
the old paperback cover with the chained mice  crossing a rickety bridge and the evil Slagar the hooded fox grinning  evily entranced me. I had to have that book. My mom took a look at it and realized it was a sequel. We got Redwall at the library and mom read it too me, before we finished  I  made her buy me Mattimeo and started reading it myself before she'd finished reading  me Redwall. This was back in 2nd grade. I read Watership Down that year for the first time   too. It wasn't until several years later, after getting the internet on our home computer that I discovered the furry fandom. I was bored and looking around my room spotted my  Redwall collection. I decided to see what Redwall sites were on the net. I was greeted Redwall.org, which at the time contained a long list of Redwall fansites and clubs. I quickly starting all the clubs that looked even half interesting. My first charcter was an otter, Suriana Summerfield. I had a whole group of characters that went with her, her brothers and friends. I started RPing her in AOL chatrooms. At the time I had the SN Montanabuffalo so I also RPed a buffalo character, Montana, that owned a bar & grill, I'd get a lot of cruel jokes about people wanting to put Montana on the grill. It was one day while looking at Redwall fan art that I found the fandom, there was link to Yerf, I clicked it and was amazed by the amount of artists and the skill they had. I soon became obsessed with furry art and from links to artists pages I found the everything about the fandom I'm come to know and love. It was one day while listening to Furry Fantasies II (a very good CD that you can buy from the Furry Music Foundation), that I realized my true furry identity, a cat. I always kind of knew, I can't count the times people have made allusions to me being or acting like a cat. All the time I've spent lying on the floor in the sun, romping around on all fours with my 3 cats, it all made sense. So I threw away my old characters and started my life as Aelis Montana (the name Aelis I got from a Paul Kidd book, Mus Of Kerbridge, Aelis was the evil queen of Nantierre, Montana came from my SN at the time still Montanbuffalo.) I started talking with a few furs through AIM and ICQ, my first real furiend was Willow Fox ::waves to Willow:: a local fur, I wanted to meet him over February vacation but he was going to VT, so instead I met his friends, Chad Fox and Sparky, I'd actually had Chad in my AIM list but never really talked to him. It was amazing to meet other furs, no one else understood or even bothered to try. Me and Chad decided to start an all furry band, the idea never got off the ground. We never found a drummer and I recently sold my bass to get a mandolin, although we might still try with me as an extra guitarist. I'm now trying to get myself to write some furry stories (as you can see here on my site) as well as saving up money for a fursuit. You can find me lurking around ALF and I'm usually sitting around my apartment or at the West Corner of the Park on FurryMUCK.