FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Love. It's a strange, intangible thing, I realize now, as I drift through the beige, sandswept sky, weathered wings flapping against the biting gusts that whip and tear at my beak and talons.

It's a thing with no real meaning, yet everything has its own view of it. You can't hold it but we all share it. It wears a veneer of beauty and can inspire acts of unspeakable cruelty. It's what we all aspire to obtain in our short lifetimes, yet can disappear so easily, and it can take all we have from us in its thrall.

The humans know of this paradox all too well, caught in the throes of battle in the war-torn city below. Throngs of them take to the streets, lobbing firebombs at their armored opressors bearing down on them, before being cut down in great swaths by gunfire. Screaming and frenzied prayers are killed in the air by the deafening booms of explosives. Buildings collapse and crash in the blaring havoc. Massive lumbering war machines bull through the streets. Groups of soldiers skulk through the shadows and alleys, employing skill and tactic in their approach. I have no doubt they know, however, that the end result, once they snake into the ambush that awaits them, will be the same.

I have no right to judge them, save, perhaps, pity. My kind suffered much the same fate, many eons ago. We loved, and defended our love, from the human hunters who slaughtered us, from warring tribes who tried to encroach on our rightful territories, from beasts who stalked us in the night. And from each other, mating quarrels and petty disagreements. Over love.

Now, there are scant few of us left. I may very well be the last, it's been so long since I met another like me. Three-hundred years, if memory serves, I'm not quite sure. I wish desperately to take wing in search of others, but we have made a conviction to always live in secret, never allowing ourselves to be seen by humans. I chose this desolate place for that very reason and with so many battles like this one erupting throughout the region, keeping myself hidden has grown more and more difficult. Even now, driven out this far to hunt, I put myself in considerable risk.

I expect I'll probably die in this land. Even if I did go searching for others of my kind, where would I begin to look? Would I even be able to find them, keeping themselves hidden in solitude among nature?

As I ponder this solemn question, a sole human catches my eye, nearly swallowed in the shifting chaos down below. Covered head to toe in a shawl of blackest night. A woman, then, given this land's customs. She crept through the horrified stampede of robes and screams towards a back alley of the city.

Without a clue as to why this person has piqued my curiosity, I dive down for a closer look, taking care to avoid being spotted as I melded through the choking black smoke and clouds of dust, though it's doubtful anyone would be looking into open sky in such panic.

I landed on a building and watched her silently as she hurried through the dark alley below. A door blasted open as she was about to pass and a man, head wrapped in ragged cloth, barged out, aiming his gun at her. Droplets of blood speckled her robe as bullets tore through the gunman from behind, a small cavalry rapidly approaching from the far end of the alley. She quickly ducked into a side lane, then into another when she heard voices drawing near. She huddled behind a garbage bin until the thunder of footsteps and rattling guns rumbled past and died into the distance and lunged at the chainlink fence in front of her. It rattled and clanged loudly as she hastily clambered her way over it and collapsed hard onto the ground. She wasted no time in catching her breath and made for the street ahead. There were no explosions or clatter up ahead, so perhaps if she hurried, she'd be safe? I followed along after her from the rooftops, never taking my eyes off her.

She had barely left the shade of the alley when a corpse tumbled heavily onto the sidewalk in front of her. She froze dead cold. An earth-shaking boom from further down the street rocked her to her knees. From her position, she must've gotten a terrifying view of the lifeless body before her. Poor boy, couldn't have been a soldier. His eyes were frozen wide in terror, streaks and speckles of red running down his face from the horrible hole in his forehead.

I watched her struggle to her feet when another screaming mass of innocents came tearing through. She got caught up in their numbers and was swept along in the confusion. All around her, shrieks, frenzied footsteps, rockets and grenades blasting their homes to dust and rubble, people thudding to the ground left and right as bullets whizzed past, invisible save for their shrill, telltale call of Death. Chaos.

It wrenched at me, a deep, horrible burning in my heart, to simply watch and do nothing as so many people had their lives, everything they had, ripped from them. My kind must never interact with humans. It's our oath, our law. We made this vow to avoid further death and destruction of our kin, and the ones who break it always bring misfortune to themselves and those who learn of them. Swooping in now would accomplish nothing. I wouldn't be able to save anyone, and I'd be shot down as well.

This is all I can do.

Another explosion erupted from ahead. The top of a tall housing complex was engulfed in dust, smoke and fire. I could hear people yelling from here as they fled the massive chunk of concrete and steel that used to be the roof and billboard calving down upon them. Many of their voices fell abruptly silent, quashed in the ensuing destruction.

I glanced back down to see the woman in black force her way through the crowd, dashing toward the collapsing building. Why is she heading there? Was it her home? I gallop briskly over the edge and take flight, stalking her as I would prey.

She soon reached the destroyed apartment building, stopping at the mountain of debris by the front entrance. I landed on a rooftop behind her and lowered myself to the floor, folding my wings close to me. I watched her hastily scan around for another way in until she simply trudged over the piles of shattered concrete and climbed into a blasted-open gap in the second-floor wall. Unable to contain my worry for the poor soul, I took wing and made ground just outside as she vanished into the darkness. Again, I lowered myself to my haunches and crept along after her. Hoping I wouldn't be spotted from behind, so recklessly exposing myself like this in broad daylight, I peeked inside.

It was a horrible scene, same as outside. Abandoned children were left to bawl and crawl alone in the halls, elderly women shakily chanting prayers for salvation, fathers and mothers, siblings and friends begging and pleading for the limp beloveds in their arms to wake up and stand again as the men rushed about, shouting orders and readying their weapons to protect what was left.

All around was death and destruction, and in the middle stood the woman in black. I watched as she tore off the black hood around her face, tanned and marked with the wrinkles of age. I saw tears streaming from her shining blue eyes. "Ymed! Ymed! Where are you?" She screamed in her native language and charged up the stairs.