FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Vaxil couldn't dream revenge.

And so she plummeted fro the platform with Eloise held to chest, wings near frozen, whitened ribbons hung blackened twined greyed all about a-wave while spires the same zoomed by. They tumbled in the drying air, water surging up at the snapping of ice rent above.

Eloise slipped fro her grip and swung along her chest to up onto her left wing, later the other, to hack till the ice at the knuckles chunked off; the right of wings which flapped to straighten their tilt was too weakened to break their fall to where light bare reached, the spires slated dark.

Up into them thumped 'tals fro alow then abreast flew to pull them up, shifting away when her starved weight whelmed: the two thudded into slate sloped slight which thundered with cracks; it crumbled ere they would've risen; another fall, steadied almost, toward mounded clay that shone atop stone parched. Stretches of the stuff split.

The staled smell here meant not aught; that weight on her right wing, that weight, slowing her, against the wild, wronged. Wronged. Eye twitching. Ears pinned. She started to growl. She bucked; she bucked till Eloise hurtled off into a ceiling pipe grabbed onto midair and swung a loop fro to a rolled landing then swiveled about, silvered rapier of trebled arm length unsheathed with a clack, to a snarling Vaxil whose gaze tunneled her lone.

« Arrêt, calm. I taught you how to attack between, remember ? » That she waved her rapier in rings would have frightened any other but reminded her of sparring, theirs. Eloise, champion duelist of Duccel. And her best teacher, somehow garbed in a black hat feathered blue and red plus one gold-trimmed shoulder capelet burgundy atop a blouse white tucked into booted breeches black tied together by a girdle a pouch hung fro. She was young again, fair, but how?

'Thou walkest. But Zadrie; he cutteth into thy backbone. And thy rapier be ungainly.'

— I tuned with someone close, now gone. The strength, his strength, has yet to depart. A slow drain to taunt me. »

Kerith. Put to death. She reached toward her, at first slow. 'Run to me now!'

But Eloise span: a claw swiped fro the dark; she stepped back, hair swished by the breath of a maw that snapped at her. Spittle plashed against a brown glove raised. « Qui ? »

It scampered back, wide eyed.

She hacked. The stone was quenched. Vax scooped her up as down fro spots high in the walls leaped thin boned 'tals of hue dulled, worn linen fastened to shorts rustling. Ten, alow the shoulder to Vax yet too many, skittered at the outstretched rapier that swirled its tip mid ground given. They were prowling, prowling to hem them into the middle. The sky; she jumped; claws tore into her robes and hove her to the clay which crazed—coppered pipes, not clay. Hands clasped her limbs. 'Be still or taken to breed pits.'

Five the rest backed pinned her while she thrashed and the ropes looped, her thew hardened with each tautening. 'Let go lest I cripple you.'

One pried her hand whence Eloise rolled into a kneel to the backrow, blade tip slid along the root of an outthrust claw which reeled as blood streaked a hat tipped amid the stunned.

Vaxil tore out a pipe and whacked it into a chest hovered over her left wing, that he staggered toppling two, four sent to scurry to their holes like weasels, then punched the other who leered near her neck ere the third walloped the bend bruised in her side and she wrothe. Drops began to rain fro the sky. Her limbs squirmed every way but at him.

A glint popped up to the back of his left knee, edge fitted to where scales softened, and drew to the side; blood trickled; the leg wobbled yet bucked at Eloise who side stepped, smirk become frown when he span with wing to swing into her head which ducked for she lunged with feet shot up to slide under on her back into a thrust athwart his palm mid-wallop. In grounded flight he lurched away. « Get up. »

The rapier clanked on a pipe and she fell. The side of her blouse was ripped, the flesh a deep mess riven.

Vaxil grabbed her. Wings flapped above. She dashed into a tunnel and ran through or into the dark. Ceiling was shaking. Had to get her help. Palm was soaked. Runes. None at hand. The farms in the dales would give some.

« Vax. »

The tune would save her long enough. The path forked ahead. Which way went south? Paws plashed.

« Put me down. »

A tip pricked her palm, unheeded. So much blood. 'We'll go back. The 'nesses shall heal thee.'

« No, I have healing. Just put me down. »

Her boots did and Eloise pulled off a glove to rummage her hand in that pouch, other clutching waist.

'Let me.'

« Like how you broke all the plates at Mary's ? » She smiled. It was a healthy, red smile.

She tried to smile back, hardened lips quivering to bow at the corners. 'Thou thoughtst a wyrm best befitted a home and hearth of wer.'

« You still do. » Her bouk bent and she lurched with a gasp, free hand to the wall. « Set me down. Won't you ? »

The stone would press hard, so she lay beside her too, letting her lean on her, head tilted to look down at her. 'We must go soon. H-heal, heal quick. '

The whole time in that wretched keep, she had been so near while Vax let them hurt her, hurt herself. Then she lashed out at her for saving both of their lives. The loftroof quaked, a broken brick fallen near. Otherwise hushed. Just breathing, deep, slow, trying to hark back the way she fell to set herself southward bound to wherever the 'tal smuggled drugs into the underburg.

« Are you still there ? » Her right hand was reaching out into the dark, feeling not the claw at her hip.

'I am. I am.' She leaned her snout into her grasp, the fingers relaxing. Always grasping, boughs and wings and blades. Even when they put her in a dress. Her fingers slid along.

« Vax.

'Yes?'

— You're the most beautiful person I've ever known. I'm grateful to you. For being in my life all those years ago. And now. Hero. Or should I say, helt ?

'That's it. The years to come too.'

Her breaths shallowed. Her hazel eyes held hers.

And Eloise leaned forward and kissed her.

She kissed her. She was kissing her. She, she kissed too, as best she could. It was a long kiss.

The pouch dropped to Vax's palm as Eloise fell back and smiled again, her eyes closing. She was very still now. Her lips bare ope. « Promise me. You'll get out of this city.

'I promise, we will.'

— Thank you. »

Her hand fell fro her waist.

'Eloise?'

Her head tilted to the side.

'Eloise.'

The water was rising in the tunnels. Drops seeped through cracks.

Vax picked her up and rose too. 'Wyrms east, wyrms east don't weep.' They would leave together. Think forward.

She jogged toward the middle offshoot in the fork as more rocks fell.

'This way.' Ahind her stood a silver 'tal wreathed in cloth ash matted—the one'd trailed.

'Who?'

He loured his hood. A scar ran both inner eyes to the tip of his snout. 'Fent.' The leader of that uprising seventeen years ago, and of the twoth cut short too. 'I should kill thee for all thou'st let down.'

'Fiosa needeth thee.'

'Fiosa.' Would what happened call her once more? Would one of such awing strength hear that her craftless way killed? Brown locks spilt over her hand. Her hair was so fair, even in this dark... the pouch. It was full. She pulled out something dun: a rune for summoning.

Fent lunged into her and Eloise was flung fro her hand; the roof shattered; a tide of bricks began pouring, the roof reached in a tick where she had stood. More kept rushing down. Eloise lay not about her. She started pulling bricks, heeding not the ones smashing into her back.

It wouldn't work.

Fent watched, just as a 'tals did in times of sorrow. Watch.

She rose. She ran ahind him to follow through the twisted tunnels, some more cavern-like.

She sprinted up alongside him. 'Fiosa giveth thee what for this?'

'She heareth ere doing. Unlike we.'

Up and down, left, right they went. The few 'tals about were scampering the way back. This tunnel ended: pitch black alow, a tunneled pillar ahead. He leapt over. For what were these tunnels? She flew. 'I tried to help. I was to right everything.'

'So did I. So was I. Look at where we stand.'

The rumbling grew, thumps that rushed through the rock the root.

'Ahead lies the new south breeding pit. The routes about it will be guarded, so we'll go straight above. Up, this slant. Don't be seen. And hear: Fiosa will have gone southwest to the Homlick farms to stir the hearts of 'tals, the weak, the misborn too.'

The misborn: those great 'tals. 'A pit of breeding? Loathsome.' The thumps were humps then. Moaning was neared.

'So many 'tals have already been become egg sitters. More than ever have. Indrive foisted. I can't, we can't help them. Not yet.'

'Breeding is between two only.'

'Nea. Not even the farmers at the outskirts share thy wer view.' Nor all wer. The tunnel opened to a walkway that spanned a great room. 'The watch walk, emptied to go below. After this, left, left, right, forward, left.'

They began to slink over, held to the middle lest any who looked up saw them at the sides with ease. Alow stood five platforms sided six, the mid the greatest, split by depths darkened. Pelts littered in straw blanketed the floors whereo'er twenty or so bodies thinned slithered along ten most over fed, all slicked, wettened. Some shivered for a tick as the walls outside quaked but kept pressing withal. It reeked bittered, a third sweetened. Tals made nests with the stuff strewn and snapped at any who so much as glanced, even 'nesses, let alone neared three ells away. Aft a laying ended, the 'ness would leave through one of the tunnels embedded in the northern wall, most like to lay an egg.

They reached the other side as a roof rove and Fent shoved her forward to ahead of it; the rubble showered fore their hands asunder. Vaxil stepped fro the dust, while Fent rushed fro it.

The pouring of bricks stopped thumping into something that coughed within the dust. A tail waved along the floor afore her. Scales black. Gerlis. Vax breathed through teeth clenched. Gerlis. Nea; the promise would hold unbroken.

'Fent? And another one of these breeding pits.' Motes sprayed with every word uttered. 'Two birds, one stone.' She lunged at him; he ducked under, and her paw tore into the mid of his tail. He gasped but grabbed a rock and slammed it into her paw again and again. Vax's limbs stiffened. She was hidden in the dark. Her claws were digging into debris flaked.

That throat growled. Her tail wealed him; he head wrenched to the side, eyes just looking forward dazed. Another strike; a tooth broke; another lodged into that tail. She span to pick him up by the neck. 'A saying from a rather alluring woman I met. Never learnt much about females, did you?'

Eloise. Her claws bled, bent into the rocks.

His hindlimbs thrashed, fores at her hand. 'I beg thee to make me an inmate, not kill me.'

'You, whose mere existence has taunted me for so long and killed so many 'nesses, beg?'

'Gerlis, yea. I am begging. To die cannot be.'

Her grip loosened, his hands doing their all to pry those claws off his neck. 'Why. Why can it not.'

'For those I ward will go without.'

'From what? From whom?'

'Thou heard'st the answer long ago. Thou seest it below.'

'I've cleaned out many already. Many more to come. Say it.'

'Dragonesses.'

She snapped his neck, then dropped him. Just dropped him there. Like an evil athel fro a wer talebook, she dropped him like he was a rat a shalk was to broom away. She went to glare down fro the walkway while she muttered something of saving ere she jumped down to the mid platform, many pelts scattered at the landing, to yell at them all to stop, the 'nesses to leave, the 'tal to stay to be deemed.

Dwamed light flowed fro his body. Not the ash of death. A mist. A mist that flitted about in the dark, unguided, ere it bowed to Vax. It swirled into her chest to well within her whole being. Tals eating, safe, guarded, flashed into her eyes. His dreams?

Had Eloise not dreamed? Had she done all she had e'er wanted?

His dreams. To save, to ward. Were they hers now? That heart he held. Nea. She owned them not. But she would make them happen, all the same. This undeer, this undeer, could be no more. No more.

I'm sorry, Eloise.

There was only the slight scudding of air at the fores of her wings as she dove, rune crushed, light shaping out fro her right hand. She looked at Gerlis, naught else, who swiveled.

And so did Vax ram Fairness into her chest; Gerlis's paws slued, pelts ripped, straw blown, dust to trail as they careered, the scratching broken by the flight to the platform next. They slammed into the wall which shook and blood was hacked at a crunch of steel rang neath eyes splayed afore brick cracked.

Gerlis's fingers twitched about the sides of Fairness—Fairness was a shield? The oversetting, lost. Vax's eyes held narrowed and she pulled back and Gerlis held onto the shield, hers leated like the walls but red.

'Vaxil? What'—she hacked again—'are you doing? Stop. Calm down. It's not safe here. My keep is.'

Her eyes were so saddened. So angered. So bittered. So hurt. So were hers.

Vax thrust her tail at her right eye, left forelimb blocked by the shield, but Gerlis grabbed it.

Aft one blink, the undeer let go of it to grip the shield and smash her into the ground. 'Stop fighting me.' She was pummeling the shield. 'What holds this thing together? Another relic of yours?'

As Vax's brawn withered tautened hardened, near bursting, the shield held. Her bones creaked. The shield held. Her hindlimbs bent. The shield held. Her fingers started slipping. But the shield held. His dreams were to be scattered too, soon. The ground sank beneath her.

Wind gusted over her and into everything but her. Gerlis withstood it for a tick; then she was thrown into the wall.

This wind that brast fro a tunnel above flowed against itself. It bit and gnashed in the smallest of ways. Scented. It was the wind that was wronged. Trapped. The shield swinded fro being. She needed not spin to learn who cast it. To learn who Laé was. This was, in truth, the first time she had ever seen him.

'Defiler of Avindor bygone'—her maw held open against the wind—'breeder of the defenceless, and now, a liar twice, not a lone word more fro me shalt thou e'er hear but to say thy name, brother of Ariss: Aetos.'

'Oh dear. That I failed to show her the truth haunts still.'

Gerlis was plodding toward them. 'What is she talking about?'

'You know the pits are my doing.' As Aetos spoke, Vax began to sidle away fro Gerlis, who cast a worried look her way and tried to near her.

'Why are they so populated? 'Nesses aren't even looking at each other. It's like they've forgotten their love for one another. This is all disgusting.'

'Strength. Cease your naivety. I am a male.'

'No. No you're not. I don't care if you have those parts. If you are a 'ness in your heart, or if you simply wish to be one, and you try, try to make that real, I can't hate that. No matter the what once or was considered to be. You're not alone. Others work through that journey.'

Even Vax blinked.

Aetos then laughed. 'Oh, Gerlis. For you of all dragons to be so open minded is an irony. I would like to linger in this moment. It warms. I do not experience that much these days.'

Gerlis smiled. Aetos did too.

'However, hear me: of one of whom you speak, I am not, for those concepts, I simply am beyond. Now, you are on the verge of your asking me to stop all this corruption by my shutting off the water awhile.'

She nodded.

'I prepare us for the storm to come. My answer: No. Numbers and quality will be all in this fight'—he leapt back as Gerlis smashed the ground he had stood apon—'whether or not you recognise it.' The 'nesses and 'tals started fleeing, the latter with egg in hand.

'You stretched my wings the day I fought Vaxil.'

'Hear that, Vaxil? The work of others was the only reason you came at all close to having slain her, failing still. What a disappointment you are.'

'Leave her 'lone.' She lunged.

He leapt away. His wings spread. 'As you did? I recall otherwise.'

She lunged again. 'I was protecting her.'

Again he leapt away. The tips of his knuckles crooked, the film between each twoth stretching. 'Oh? What will she say to that in but a moment?'

Once more did she lunge.

And a tunnels of wind fro sides ten burrowed at her, boring into her scales that cracked, and she dropped to the ground, fettered by the wind, might stilled.

Vaxil stepped back. Only, her paw never even touched the ground; wind pushed it forward.

'We commence a talk. In what ways did Gerlis harm you?'

She stared.

'Whatever Ariss told you, consider this: she always envied my mastering the wind. Were that pesky Felsa and that draci, silly biped, not to have meddled, Avindor would rule all of Aesira by now.'

Her wings spread. He did not shut them.

'You are not so important that I will while away life to hear another quaint speech that is drumming up in your head. Speak lest I collapse your windpipe.'

The eggs of Telil, taken by his hand and later saved, nor Vaxil's eggs would he get.

'Do you not even wish to learn what prophecy I follow?' He tilted his knuckles; the wind on her let up. 'Come.'

The air sundered as he alit back fro her pounce, head a breath fro claws again stilled. 'How does Ariss hold up? Would that she learnt you would kill me were we to meet, she would slay you despite my all.'

The wind let go; she dashed right at him and he alit on another platform. 'Having got so close, I cannot help but note you fare poorly, turned from handsome warrior to prettied doll to marred waif. At least it was not Fiosa's vanity that chose you.'

She waited this time. So did Aetos.

'Fiosa is powerful, as being with but two thirds of the water showed. The entire city would be under my guidance at the present had she not taken so much of my supply. Her squirming will entertain me for decades. Did you learn where she is, I wonder. Given the corpse I saw on the way into here, I reckon yes.'

Aetos dodged back with the wind, again and again, the stops no longer made, leap aft leap, but Vax was nearing more each time. 'Oh? You are hastening now.' Aetos kept slashing wind at her. 'The red blur speeds up like a ball rolling down a mountain but infinitely. This interests. Your eggs we will need. Yes, yes. Hasten, hasten. More. More!'

She leapt at him and the wind slapped her.

'I apologise, but how did you expect me to resist such a serious face? Yet it remains so serious.' Wind pinned her again. 'Time to submit. Do you not yearn to continue your bloodline? Think of how strong your offspring will be, of how many they will save, and of what lives they will live! Who are you to deny them their existence and to kill them before they hatch?' The wind started to drub into her fro all sides.

Striker. Heir. Wreaker. The wind was catching her eye, the flow, so fast, seen. Another oath already to be broken.

'What I do.' It wasn't her answer. She knew not what it said or who uttered it.

'What? That does not answer my'—his eyes widened. 'Hmpf. To grammatically err in spite of your clearly rich learning is oh-so clever. Your offspring shall learn to always adhere to strict grammatical rules to shine best.'

She rose above the speed of the wind and slammed into a wall of wind.

'That satisfies. An excellent display, to be sure. You shall be a proper dragoness soon. To think of it: enough speed, and perhaps even the lightning will not matter, provided that—'

The ground split and rock rose and Aetos winged fro Gerlis and wind started pummeling her and she fell at once. The strength. Scales were breaking from it.

She spoke not. Not words. Only snarling as a fiend, eyes scrunched into slits beneath jagged brows and above teeth bared full. Every thew tautened but the air was weakening her. But the wind lessened its grip on Vaxil. Not enough to near, but enough to soon run.

'It ought to take but a single wing, yet for you it now takes almost all.'

'Help me. Please.' Gerlis stepped toward Vaxil. 'Don't leave me to a 'tal.'

A Gerlis made to breed, a gut-wrenching thing to see in one's mind's eye. A swift death was the answer, not bedeviling, not harmlust. And yet, she knew not what to hate herself for more: that she couldn't help, or that she wanted to help her at all.

'I loved her.'

'Then thou'd have stayed with her.'

She flew up onto the walkaway and ran through that tunnel. After this, left, left, right, forward, left, he had said.

The tunnel caved in ahind her. Gerlis? There was not a way she could have goaled it so. Vaxil turned to the southwest. Her wings shadowed the crag whereapon she stood. Vans weakened, but winds steadied: good t0 glide. She soared, and she glid o'er the weald.

This queendom, twisted by its sickened grip with itself, yet stood on the shoulders of the downtrodden. The root of the rot was their debauchery. Their wanton craving for their fellow female wyrms only further weakened them, a learning which Fiosa would yield to should the wyrd of the 'tals sway her.

That which had happened between her and Eloise: it did not count, for she shared not that love, even though she could not bring herself to hurt Eloise at the time. She went happy. An...unsame love, shown in an unsame way. Not the same.