FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

He flew over set after set of dried terraces 'tals farmed rice on, a brown-striped white variety, hardened past the southerly to survive here in the cooling season, and passed the lone administrative tower, while the mountains far to the sides took less and less of the horizon the farther from Filk he went, firs turning to pines.

The terraces scarps had once cleanly divided into blocks impressed more from above than up close, lowering flight told; hoar already rimed the untended banks, even at noon this far south. Thirty seven leagues after three hours, in part achieved by med-length wings narrow from fronts to backs. That, and shoulder muscles he'd not seen in any other dragon, only in stravin--feathered in metal near black and hand-sized quadrupedal avians storms attracted. He liked them; most didn't.

A bluff at the edge of one block, forest girded, would rest him well with a break for lunch.

With a slow tilting of wings and a path looping wide, he descended to the cliff-topping glade, to near its treeline to shade; dampened grass flexed from his paws' touching down but held to its roots. Called for a blanket; he laid it out and lay.

Calmed. Flight gave time to mull, and the forest, time to just...breathe.

His armour clinked, just from that.

He started checking how it fit, doffing the left thigh plate: and froze.

The scales, spread and scratched from hours of flying; hadn't noticed the chaffing, focused on words' repeating.

No; enough of her.

Now pain. Searing.

The flask's water helped clean it. A lot. The flesh unreddened as a dragon's head, face masked, poked out from the nettle right beside him.

'Hail,' Klek said, stilled, face to face with a 'tal.

'You don't look it. Hand your bags over .' Four--no five more slipped out from between the trees, masked too.

The first to speak stepped forwards; Klek pulled the blanket; the dragon fell, and he leapt onto his back in one smooth motion before launching into flight. A tail clutched his left hindleg. His eyes twitched; It took everything to not fall and shield the stretching flesh out of instinct but he kicked back, hitting a face, and was released.

Too late.

Another grabbed, then another; dragged down, pinned by one on his back as others searched.

'What's a thief doing out here?' their leader asked while gazing skywards. A scar ringed his green neck.

'I thieve nothing. Accuse me not of your own crimes.'

'We're all thieves. Hold on'--he grabbed a badge--'Gerlis? Looks we've a ransom.'

'I'm one of twelve. Guess how much she'll care.' Of three.

'Looking to die then?'

His head dropped. 'That's where this is going.'

'Eh, nah. Just no moving.'

One slipped the urn, spinning it on his right hand. Klek reached out but a hindpaw stomped his forelimb.

'Ah something of value. How much you think we'll ransom the urn back to him for later?'

'Eh, thirty erls at best.'

Klek slipped out from under and lunged, snatching the urn back. One slashed across his exposed thigh--the burn mark split, another shoving him over onto his side, then bled.

'You brought this on yourself,' the leader said as he walked over, sliding an elongated bladed knuckle, silvered, onto his right foreclaw, but to freeze on sniffing. 'Wait! We apologise!'

The others stared at their leader till they smelt Klek's blood.

'We apologise, we apologise, we apologise,' he kept repeating as they set his bags down, each in turn bowing their head while saying, 'Sorry.'

'Just leave me be.'

'Let us stitch your wound.'

'Fine.'

Two of them worked string to stitch quickly, gently, respectfully. Made him squirm. He kicked one of them too. They all sprinted into the forest afterwards. It didn't hurt as much as it should, but perhaps adrenaline shielded him from the worst of it.

He set about tightening his armour. The stitch would have to do. An hour had passed by the time he drank and retook flight, not hungering anymore.

Brigandry occurred decades ago from what he'd read; not the last two from what he'd seen. Couldn't come from rebelling; not much point to it when you get basics from Renait...basics such as medicine, tools, writing and writecraft, or magic, were one to follow the human take on it. Writecraft and he did not mix. Likely much the same for Caldain, given the...

The sky spiked with trees? His head rang--

'Klek!' shouted a voice muffled as he fell, sunlight from parted clouds blinding.

Two forelimbs hugged him tight, plummeting down with him. 'Wake, wake!' Navy fur, Caldain?

He woke, back pressed to a cushion on a rock, to the night. 'Grand, Huntsmaster?'

'Klek, I, Fla, saved you. You slept for hours.'

He tried to crawl away, only for Fla's to drag him back, into a hug, wiping mud off his face.

'Klew--'

He clawed her side. 'Get. Away from me.'

'Klek, I'm sorry. I've not seen you in a year; please, forgive me.'

'Where'd you get this fur from?

'One of Caldain's hunts. That 'tal does it in ways surprising.' She cuddled him, the coat warming.

'He's not just a 'tal.' Gods she infuriated and scared him. Her older sister held too much power.

The grip of her claws relaxed but still held grey scales tinted white-blue by starlight, the winds having quieted merely soughing the trees.

'Klek, have you ever flown in the flyways of the deep?'

Renait's underbelly, where he learnt how many days he could go without food. 'No.'

'The 'tals struggle. They fight. They bleed. They die. And they dig. They keep digging. Room always runs out, so more of the mountain goes. And yet, even there, 'nesses live in luxury.'

'Stay away from Mishra or I'll kill you.'

'Oh that 'ness? She'll join my harem once I've grown to regal but slim stature. Don't read me wrong; I'll treat her right, just as I will you.'

'You're disgusting.'

'Then go.' She did release him. 'But listen: keep south a while, explore and learn.'

'I'll do my job. You should be doing yours.'

'No, listen to me: stay down south.' Claws turned his head until their gazes met. 'I speak sincerely. Please. For at least two months. I'll come back down and bring you home.'

As sincere as she sounded, he still wrested himself from her grip. 'Touch Mishra and I'll kill you; I swear it.'

He flew south; she flew north.

***

'Halt. Who goes there?' said a brown-scaled 'tal flying to patrol above the moonlit camp spotted with candles, wings small but apt at hovering.

'Klek, herald of Gerlis.' Klek descended to the plateau pointed at by the leather-clad guard, who alit two yards before him.

'The message?'

'Either Caldain yields his half of the seed to her Highness, Princess Sia, should she request it, upon his return, or Gerlis will have him executed.'

'Alright. He's reading in his tent, tattered one by the edge.' Out in the open, uncushioned. The dragons, fifty well-worked 'tals, set up the whole camp in front of the natural tunnel, the one way to Spir.

'Not the one in the centre?'

'Yeah yeah you predicted he'd work in the plushed tent he's slyyada yada let's hurry up come on--'

Klek walked to pass but a hand held him back by the chest. The guard was sniffing, leaning down. 'That blood. Gerlis trying to trick us? Assassinate Caldain?'

'Get your hand off me.'

'We don't submit to 'nesses here. Remain as you are, unmoving.' He undid the black satchel's straps.

Outed again, by scent. Maybe that albino could help with it; smelt like he knew a thing or two about scent masking, that scent Klek'd only detected thanks to that his nares picked up so much more than anyone else's.

Now the brown satchel. 'An urn; does it hold ashes and only ashes?'

'Yes. I'm traveling south to cast my parents.' There was a deadness, to the way he said it.

'Ashes of adults weigh more than this.'

'My parents were small.' Not so small; truthfully, they never found the whole of them, a second more spent in that collapsed expanse to ask for an end.

He stared awhile at Klek. Then his stubby claws started struggling with the lid.

'Stop!' He tried to grab it, but the hunter managed to keep it just above reach.

A hand snatched it and another shoved the hunter. 'Stand down.'

'Yes sir.'

Klek struggled to hold his maw shut; with a mane struck with black glossed by the light waving back at the breeze, fur all over deepened to a shade blue off black, his long snout tapered, Caldain approached Klek and carefully returned the urn, reddish-brown padded leather trimmed gold with faint traces of blood on the sleeves, the only thing that could be called shameful by even the primmest of nobles. Claws razored sharp yet left no scratch.

'You can go now Bycil. Klek.'

'Cal. Caldain.'

'No need. Want to chat?'

'I'd like that.'

At the tent, he all but forced Klek onto pile of furs to check his leg. 'Why didn't you say you were bleeding?' Klek usually took more care to avoid others smelling him, but forgetting how little Cal could smell was easy with him leading so many hunts.

'But it should be bleeding a lot more than that,' Klek said when he finally decided to glance back at it.

'Details are often lost when life battles death. Come,' Cal said as he rose, 'I'll show you how we hunt. A lot's changed since last year.'

'Since two years ago.'

'That much time passed.'

'I tracked it until a few months ago.'

Cal closed the tent flaps.

'Why camp here, in front of Spir?'

'Prey populations go where they go.'

'Can we...stay here for the night?'

He nodded, then retrieved a book from a sack before coming over and lying beside Klek. 'Read the Teroci Vanfold?'

While plate after plate was removed, leaving blue cloth on grey, to him he read this book, orscheran make, rough, simple, that made no sense at all to him, but he was driven to listen by Cal's burning enthusiasm for the text scrolled with symbols conveying spears and orschera, latter done so by masks, and nets, writecraft marked ribbons...they leapt around a lot--both Cal and the orschera depicted.

'Cal, could we see each other more often?'

Cal prided himself in most things, showing in that saunter of his and in that smile as he loosened the buckles of his attire. Cocky, incredibly cocky. But, unlike anyone else Klek had met, it wasn't cocky at you; it was with you. 'Oh yeah, we can.'

'But won't they, the dragonesses, disapprove?'

'Forget them. To sleep with you would make my heart soar; would for you, with me, make yours?'

Yes. This thick fur. His hands roamed his broad chest, slowly expanding then sinking, a warmth seldom explored; furred dragons were permitted to serve pleasure, for which they were practically chased, exotic and all, or hunt, never to farm or dig, barred from diplomacy especial. Most chose to hunt, which thinned their count. And that was on the bottom of the list of reasons this excited. Gods was Cal bigger than him. 'I can't.' He'd never go that far. Not without telling.

'Okay.'

They lay there, cuddled.

'Why me?'

'Why me?' Cal asked back.

'You're the youngest Grand Huntsmaster ever. You're not even three years before me and I've accomplished nothing while you've headed the grand hunts for a year and a half.'

'And yet were otherwise so'--his head nuzzled Klek's--'we'd still be here, with each other.'

'You chose to camp in my route, didn't you.'

'Yeah, Gerlis let it slip.'

For her own ends.

Warmed and warmed. He didn't realise how much time had passed until rays piercing the smallest of gaps in the flaps signaled dawn.

'Have you been...knitting?' Cal asked.

This is where he failed. Both of them, he supposed. 'Yes.'

'Is it for me?'

He laughed. 'Yes. Here.' He gave him a now black lettered ribbon cased with a layer of threadbare cotton.

'Writecraft?'

'Not mine, but from one I trust.'

'Mishra, then. Just don't ever invite me when she's there.'

A nod.

'So, Fla befriended you?'

'Pff. Steals well, I'll grant her that. Dragonesses. Stuck looking up all the time. I wish they'd look down for once. Might see the rising floor.'

'Gerlis is always looking down.'

'I ever get her alone out in the wilds, she dies, by my claws, my teeth, my spear.'

'You reckon you'd win that? Don't risk yourself at the first chance.'

'I do, but I wouldn't be risking much. Seen her hunt? Tires prey out, takes ages and fatigues too much; a method barely worth it.' His voice was rising. 'I, Grand Huntsmaster Caldain, the slayer of the hydra, trapper of the hallowed, approach it the way humans do: find where your prey drinks, sleeps, then ambush, trapping for those needing it. Besides, she hasn't fought anything that threatened her for thirty years.'

He sounded so assured Klek near saw it in mind. If Caldain took one or two of his best, he would do it, succeed...But for pride.

'Humans? You've learnt from them?'

'No 'ness would teach me. Don't go telling everyone at the capital like it's a newly discovered method; plenty of dragons do this naturally. Bycil saved me from that embarrassment.'

Bycil...Klek readied the plate for swift harness.

'You miss them,' Caldain said, placing a hand on his to massage his claws a little, loosening Klek's overtightened grip on the urn.

'Yes.'

'It hurts. Be welcome to come to me or call for me, anywhere. I'll come as soon as duties allow. I'd have been some beast's long ago meal were it not for Bycil.'

'Do you talk much with this Bycil? Confide at all?'

'I do. He does to me as well. Why do you ask? He didn't do anything else last night, did he?'

'This will be the last time you'll see me.'

Caldain's head turned right slightly, eyes narrowing. 'What are you talking about?'

'Gerlis said give your half of the seed to Princess Sia if she asks or be executed.' He was already walking to the exit.

'Wait, wait!' He grabbed Klek's right forelimb. 'I don't bow to her or any other 'ness; we'll figure something out.'

'You'd never accept me.' Klek pulled away and took flight, leaving the camp behind. Those rays of gold could fall all day unclouded, he'd still be grey, from want or not.

'Klek!' Caldain soared up beside him. 'Wait!'

I can't. He sped. Hard. Fast. The air broke. He heard Caldain dip to avoid the air blasted.

***

The tunnel was long. Empty. To see anything was a struggle. But at the other side, light bled from the circular cave ivied, the space expansive. From a crevice at the base of the back wall rushed air, air, swirling up along the spiraled walls, the vines thickened at the last third, and to the fissured ceiling. Out there, the current plumed.

He walked to the crevice.

'You understood me.' He held the urn. His grip, it was so tight, his claws scratched it. 'I'll never forget what you did for me. You taught me our history, that the future could differ.' One claw hovered at the edge of the lid, wiping away dust from the tunnel. 'Although, you didn't let me be beat by the dragonesses I rejected.' He laughed.

He lifted the lid.

Then cast their ashes. While they ascended along the walls, he followed, a few yards from their side. 'You let me hunt alone as males are.'

They reached the vines, coursing along the grooves.

'And you let me go.'

He stopped at the top, watching as they went. Almost burst through it to go with.

Someday.

'Thank you.'

The last specks soared, joining the all.

'Goodbye.'

***

At noon again, the sun lit the camp marks, skids in dirt mushed between muddied flattened grass. He wouldn't work for Gerlis anymore.

Whether death should be the reward, he would confront her, for it was time. It was time to let go.

But first, he had some lengthy errands to run, to prepare.