FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The clouds had been darkening awhile. Klek alit in the unroofed cabin, aged and human built: the dead drop…here, under the floorboards that creaked: a gem lightning imbued, sparks charged enough to electrocute any dragon no matter how much muscle they packed should they but touch it with their claws, save Klek; never had learnt why. Didn't harm the marble in his satchel.

He began flying, while the sun set, towards the peaks westward of Renait, the territory reclaimed. Needed to get the marble carved into a statue, then the gem set into it. A dragon could not do that.

These jagged mountains formed the base of the cordillera that rose till it would fall mostly sharp to the oceans, or so he read. Throughout stood broken towers that jutted from the shorter peaks, those at the summits entirely gone from fell having eaten, still so at a pace reduced, everything—and chunks of the landscape too; they needed be culled again, soon. Her Grandeur flaunted the title, Reclaimer of the Peaks. A title stolen. He may have hated Gerlis, but she did a mean job at the culling, likely done alone given the Queen's rare if ever fighting, and at least she was honest; Dorissa propagated the notion of protecting the “pristine beauty" of the place from resettling as reason for doing nothing here. Easy to peddle since no one came out this far anymore. So much intor wasted by her distracting parties lavished on 'nesses, gilded gifts, bribing otherwise unwilling queens to fuck them or her, all supported by her continuing complete and full slavery, nay, “serfdom," for farmwork, from what he'd overheard from Gerlis's talks with her harem.

His wings tired; the wind had calmed for some time, flows cut to flagging. Stilled air felt like grating his membranes against gravel. Ahead would be the Great Split, an erstwhile canyon eaten away to slopes, more a rock-spiked valley forested dark green and grassless.

Two weeks; Kaiel would have been holding out on her own against her and that harem for two weeks by now. Toughened by the far north, she had learnt how to lay low for fasted months on end to avoid being eaten by a feral, skills now best put to use ducking the leering gaze of most of the nobility. A few more days, just a few more days, and something big was to happen. His contact said so. Well, one of them did, the one with the sliced in three triangle, not the pronged oval.

The sun wasn't setting.

His wings pumped air to dart from the thunder, trails thence drawn a league long from the burst of speed, curved at the ends to observe sidelong: behind him buffed a storm stretching, bulging in clouds midnight blue drifting nearer, scattered droplets looping to join the bulk. The air flashed white with a crack; over the edge of the ridge sizzled what was the cabin top into smoke. He roared then grimaced, abashed at the instinctive slip; for no end, it was an instinct shared by all dragonkind when faced by lightning. Roaring worked against creatures, not mother nature. And her rumbles drowned out all.

While he banked right to go the opposite way, a few stravin, hand-sized metal stormbirds, rose past; more followed, a full flock, all fleeing from the growing mass. They went this way, that way—anywhere but to the storm, heedless of everything else as they slammed into him. He tilted to his side as dozens dented his chestplate, many falling dead to the nearing ground—nearing.

He bolted down the slope into the canyon as his wings held him up above the jagged edges and fog engulfed all. Stravin followed, clearly as confused as he. He angled his wings up to slow but thumped into a branch and retched as it broke; he span, winds taken from him, up into the air, tumbling upwards into the eye of the storm while stravin bit him and lightning flashed nearer in patterns; he collapsed his wings and curled into a ball, whipping around, and was flung through the gap of two lightning strikes and out of the storm.

An arc struck him just as he escaped; his vision started blackening...lips...hands...pulled...melting face.

***

Dark everywhere. Every way. Klek ran, from the thing in the forest, and turned, left. Leapt over a log before ducking a branch. Toward a cave, family, around the bundled trees; his claws slid through mud, skidding; it was nearing, nearing get up and he ran and he ran and the rock—

The monster glinted red and blue then vanished. In its place, stood Dorissa.

'Child, speak of this but to die.'

He crawled back and shielded his face; and she was gone. Slashing echoed from the cave which had been sealed. No, no. He scrambled to it and pulled bits of rock from the corners, the stupid corners, and tried to slip in but the gaps were too small and he charged at the slab and charged at it and charged at it but it wouldn't budge and the screams rang and someone grabbed him and ran and the rock scattered as fire burst from the cave and scathed his leg.

A hand woke him; he lunged to topple its owner, a 'tal; who tossed him back onto the bed which creaked. His head swam with faded colours, slowly returning, skull set to burst from a headache. Everything looked like the forest but brighter blacker browner.

'Settle, settle. Larkin, remember?'

'Who what where, where is the fire?' From his leaning, the back of his head, nay, sparks, started to crack glass, a thinned window?

Larkin kissed his lips while held his gaze, brown eyes dulled further by olive scales, early middle aged; but the way he did it, so, confidently, more like a 'ness. Could 'tals be like this?

Oh and Klek inhaled. That scent, costus oil with the faded the tints of woodsmoke woven along a strong body of a potter. Oh, he could potter all day long, on his back, just all sprawled out, basking in the sunbeams from the balcony, hueing him gold, maybe in the late evening, just all stretched out, rolling, flying down to the grass, rolling atop him…why wasn't he letting Klek's tongue in? Why was he pulling away? Did he taste bad? Ooh, maybe he was taking off that brown coat thingy?

'Come back,' Klek said, stretching towards him. But Larkin grimaced as he spat and ran the back of a hand across his tongue, eyes splayed, other shot out to hold Klek back by the face.

'Stop, calm. I'm not like that and I'm sorry, but you nearly killed us last night.'

'What?'

'You plummeted into our cabin and kept burning everything with lightning till you kissed me.'

He'd kissed a 'tal unprovoked. And burnt his home, so said the walls charred black. The gem. 'I'm—'

'Hush. Calm.'

He kept tucking his legs back onto the bed. Wood walls, floor, sloped ceiling, rafters, and a chill—balcony opened he leapt off—and was grabbed again, hugged by a musky—furred!—chest that begged for him to nuzzle it. Which he did. A single smoky black line zagged his lower, very lickable looking collarbone.

Until he heard the voice of a human. Ears flared. 'Who?'

'Argil. Were you not told a thing, or did you hit your head that hard on the door? It's going to take so long to replace my boat bottles. Wait here.'

Larkin went. Klek rubbed his eyes, sore, blue spots floating about as though the light had burned into them too…Blue. The beast wasn't blue. It was never blue. It had been black and red on the night his parents had died.

Yet, 'Blue,' echoed two voices from the ashes before him, thinned now to specks. 'Blue.' Then he faded away. His mother and father. That...they...knowledge imparted. Blue.

Larkin put a hand to his shoulder, steps unnoticed. 'What do you remember?'

'Flying…a storm. A storm. Was everywhere...Wait…you're Larkin!'

'Yes, I am Larkin. The dead drop?'

'You make sculptures.'

'Yes, I make sculptures—no, Argil makes sculptures, don't mess me up. It's near ready. Just follow me to the balcony—'

The statue. Klek pushed Larkin's chest and the middle-aged dragon screeched. He reached the top of the stairs but to break a balustrade of a staircase over-narrow and go no farther, definitely built with humans in mind. Balcony it was then.

From the fore, wood bits strewn about further by their flaps, Klek entered the first floor, which had taken the brunt of it, wood peeled to a curve from heat or otherwise blasted off into flakes to where the rest was blanketed in ash, any the furniture left reduced to legs but for the reinforced table in the middle, before which stood a human wearing a jerkin and knee-length, ripped breeches, his back facing them while he chiselled a small statue that was hand-sized like a stravin, though this would pack more a deathblow than the little scale-takers. Larkin waited by the doors, judging him with beady eyes; fairly so.

'Don't mind Larkin,' Argil said. 'He's just upset he liked it,'

'If he says he doesn't, he doesn't.'

'He's playing,' Larkin shouted.

'Right, human and so.' Their kind was known for its false bite. Dragons at least half-meant it when they mocked, some truth to be found, while humans frequently made things up from nothing. Another reason he wouldn't just flee Renait and go far south past the drakes.

'You look out of it,' Larkin said, having snuck up beside him.

'I'd say fazed,' Argil added.

'Thanks dad.'

'Oh fuck off.'

'It's nothing. Is the statue done yet?' It wasn't unusual, though it was rare. That ash was not his parents themselves speaking, but rather a fraction, akin to a note of sorts, left behind on or by their deaths, their connection to him in life strong enough to have begotten it.

'Nearly. Carved that chunk all night. You're welcome,'

Klek leant low, wings falling lax at his sides. 'Thank you.'

'Now, you see, a fellow man would've just come up with witty quip.' Those words of speaking, filled with words that didn't move, was the sort humans used. Dragons did see the “be" of it all, as it were, save for those stony dragons to the south, where lay the mid-west of Aesira. He turned to face him and nodded. Klek took the proffered sculpture, the gem following from the man's other hand.

'Sure you can do this, kid?'

'I passed that age.' The answer was no. But whoever sent him to collect this in the first place would have another agent in mind for taking the gem to Gerlis. They wouldn't pick Klek for it. All he had learnt was they had given irrigation to alcoves on the outskirts, had over-harsh overseers moved north, and hampered the copper trade, another strike against Her Grander, always welcomed. They wouldn't hurt more than the current rule.

'He doesn't even look like a kid. He's nearly as big as a 'ness. Get your eyes checked by one of your kindred.' How much more had he noticed?

'Yeah well, you should ask Klek for some pointers when you get there too.' He ducked a tailswipe. 'Oi! When you're stuck with one dragon all year long you forget the subtleties. And no, I'm not going anywhere near another human if I can help it.'

'Wait, why haven't you set it in the sculpture?

'Well, uh, you kind of—'

'Ruined your home. Destroyed your equipment.'

'Eh,' Larkin said, 'I mean, yeah, but we're changing spots anyway; earlier won't hurt.'

'Going south, horribly enough. Whoever's heading this operation, for lack of a better word, will sort the gem out. Besides, you'll have less trouble hiding it this way.'

Dragons and humans paired, riding involved or not, were always hunted. Commercial relationships were not outlawed, but those few who ever dared form them they were, inevitably, hunted down by 'nesses who took it on themselves to ensure humans kept that awed look on their twisty faces with their big foreheads all wrinkled to say: Ah! A dragon, such majesty! A thing that familiarity would weaken.

'Your armour's on the right by the door...way.'

The faulds of which were blackened, but still holding. The helm was missing or destroyed; how had he survived that? He hadn't been on the ground; the strike would have only been absorbed by his body. Nevertheless, lesson one: never listen to Gerlis about not wearing armour. Lesson two: don't trust stravin, maybe? They'd never attacked him till that evening...it was midday now.

It had been half a day. He might've missed her. He rushed out the doorway just as he was grabbed by Larkin, who put his helm in his hands. 'Use more tongue next time, not teeth.'

He nodded and took flight. And a very uneventful flight it was, all left to thoughts. A light did flash half the way, but that was it. In all honesty, it was boring. He enjoyed it. It's why he always flew straight to his post in Renait rather than to the main outjutting platform at top and front, even when he still went by Klew, albeit he did descend from above since the wind would smack you into the mountainside if you flew in from low. It would take...well, he couldn't figure out what it would take to have him land on the main platform now.

Blue. This whole time, a message trapped in that urn. From his studies in his youth, he learnt most of dragonkind's existence was magical; they came from the clash of Ama, an unseen place of only doing, with Mid, a place of mixed being and doing and reality he inhabited. Or was just doing but cursed? Dragons derived mostly from Ama; humans, three quarters from Mid; stravin, all mid, and so on; most origin and tuning lessons came from writecraft study, and that, he favoured not. His parents must have been closely tuned with him to leave such a clear message.

When two beings bounced off each other, their frequencies would begin to tune, amplifying their feedback; from this came power, strength, speed, regeneration slow but from near any wound. And after some threshold unlearnt, these things workings of the mind and body only slight, immortality. More than two? A possibility but in theory, which his parents hadn't defied that rule due to the much lower level of their connection that would fall below real relevance in the minds of most.

They did love him though. Though tuning was most common, still rare, to beloved and family, followed by kith, it showed not love, but how well two bounced off each other, as even the most hated of enemies could, again in theory, tune if they didn't kill each other first. And stayed near each other for long enough too. Never happened. The more two tunes amplified each other, the quicker the connection built, the slower it decayed, and the longer the two had been near, the longer the connection would take to decay to its natural form, sudden aging not included. Closing the distance would mend this.

He reached Renait. He inhaled.

And he dove straight towards the main platform.