FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It's a natural arena, the copse of trees creating a natural clearing, hot sun beating down through the wide gap in the leaves. There's dust scattered on dead ground that might have once held grass, but that's long since been battered away by wrestling forms.

For now it's only a thoroughfare - seven bodies pass through, each running at top speed. Dust flies into the air, but even as it lingers the passers-by do not: immediately they're into the woods themselves.

Three of those runners leave bright tails streaming behind them, thick and bushy, barely moulted despite the summer heat; the other four are sleeker, with lighter tails, lighter limbs, though in truth they cannot match their competitors for pure speed.

Speed, here, is not the only objective: cunning is just as useful.

One of the former lets out a loud, high-pitched noise - a yelp and a howl in one - as he's tripped, flying over roots and landing with a sickening crack. Two of the cats high five: it's always satisfying to see a fox go down.

The remaining six break from the woods and to the edge of town, and with that they're running through, bypassing market stalls and disorderly buildings, dodging the disgruntled pedestrians without so much as a whoop or sound of acknowledgement.

Their target is fast, yes, but not that fast. The four cats share glances and with that they leap up, swinging up to building roofs to get away from the busy and bustling streets below; the foxes won't be able to catch them up now.

It's not difficult to keep eyes on their quarry; he's speedy but he's sure as Hell not inconspicuous, and the blue-green shimmer to his feathers is obvious whenever he tries to leap and fly for short stretches.

Of course, it's not easy for him. They've readily ensured that. He's bleeding, cuts plain on those pretty feathers and leaving slick red from his hip to his knee whenever he tries to take to the air. And he's making noises, too, satisfying little noises of pain and suffering.

It's nice to have a little background music on a job.

It's just as he escapes the bounds of town on the other side that they pounce as one; one tabby tackles him and pulls him down, and the other is swift about tying his hands and feet. He's crying. Fun.

The tortoiseshells remain together, and when the foxes catch up they exchange twin grins, all sharp teeth.

"What's his name?" One tabby asks, and the second shrugs.

"Aoife calls him Bird." The angel boy is shaking. He looks bizarre, and both tabbies peer at him with some fascination - his clothes are ripped, but the flesh beneath the fabric is bare as if shaved, as is that of his bare arms and bare legs. He's got no fur, and his face is strange: it's like an ape's in some ways, as for the shape, but it is smoother and of a soft brown.

He's not very big, either - he's thin like a bird, and light, too, and he is shorter than each of them by several inches. He's shorter even than Daniella, and she is not tall by anyone's standards. The wings are bright and shining in the light, blue-green on their outer curve, but now they're closer they can see the purple in the softer feathers of the underside. On his flesh, bare as it is, purple and green scales form on the skin - they form patterns from about the wings, curling down to his thighs and up about his shoulders, stretching forth from the sprout of the limbs at his shoulder blades.

Yet when Ariel is brave, reaches out and touches the scales, ignoring the boy's flinch, they do not feel rough. They are as smooth as his skin, and the difference in colour makes the flesh itself no less seamless.

"Ariel! Leon!" The tabbies look from the boy as one, regarding the taller of the two tortoiseshells - this is Diana, the eldest of all of them, and more commanding for it. Daniella is shorter, sharper, and certainly one to be more terrified of, but she rarely gives the orders. The lady rarely speaks.

Bird stares as they drop the bodies of the two foxes to the ground, necks broken. His lips are parted, his green eyes wide, and there are marks all over him - a bruise is laid on the right side of his jaw, and he bleeds profusely from a wound at his hip, blood staining his right thigh. His clothes are ripped and marred all over, and the skin beneath is bared; Daniella leans in, looking up the trousers that have become an effective skirt for the damage sustained, and he lets out a yelp, pressing his knees tightly together.

He panics, then, beginning to struggle and desperately beat his wings, but he is too weak and too tired and has too many injuries - it takes only a minute or two before he has slumped against Leon, letting out soft, quiet cries.

She is satisfied at this show of fatigue, and then, as if to make things worse, Daniella laughs, the sound low and throaty, and she begins to walk toward town again.

His wings flutter weakly behind him - he does not lash out with them for fear they'll be injured, but they curl about his body in a protective fashion. It's a natural movement, body language at its most instinctive: "Do not hurt me, for I submit."

Ariel and Leon are not rough with him. There's no point in it - the young thing is already scared witless. Better to be rough with him when he does not expect it, and get tears to well in those pretty green eyes.

"Lift him." It's not Diana who speaks, but their leader glances from her sister to the tabby pair, raising her eyebrows. Daniella has stopped short, crossing her arms over her chest. She's stockily built, and her fur is a dark chocolate colour, the hair on her head even darker in black: she's certainly intimidating, as she chooses to be.

"_Lift_him?" Ariel repeats, and he huffs. Leon shakes his own head.

"He's got wings." The latter says, as if the boy can fly with bound arms and legs.

"Lift him." Daniella repeats, and wordlessly she points to Bird's bare feet, wet with blood and new blisters, thorns having marked the flesh and ripped it in places. "He was surprised. He fled. Further damage is unwanted."

Diana nods her approval, and unfortunately hers is the last word: Leon and Ariel exchange disgruntled looks before lifting the boy onto their shoulders. His wings tickle the smalls of each of their backs, and in their holds he shakes.

"Psst. S'your name really Bird?" Ariel asks after a time, and he looks up to the angel thing, interested. The boy, this thing, is foreign, new, strange. But is his name Bird? Bird isn't a name - birds are things. Irritating things.

"Yeah! Or is it, you know, like a nickname?" Their charge does not respond: he doesn't even look at them. The brothers exchange an identical huff.

Bird is thinking, and it is for that reason that he does not respond. They are assassins - both groups were assassins, the feline set and the vulpine, and yet he is not dead. The foxes of the other guild, all three, are dead, but he is not.

This makes little sense.

He has been running for a very long distance, from the port two towns over. For three days he's barely slept, barely eaten, bathed not at all: he's simply fled and fled. And it is for nought, now, because they have him.

But they have not killed him.

"So we just take him straight to Aoife?" Ariel's question comes swiftly.

"Straight to Aoife." Diana agrees. "Simple orders, Ariel - they're not hard to follow."

"He didn't say they were!" Leon says sharply, always ready to snap to his brother's defence.

"Hush." That is Daniella; she glances to Bird first, as if making note of the fact that was listening carefully to the chatter, although his foreign ears made no twitch or indication of the fact. She smirks at him, and Bird shivers in his place, affecting his gaze to his own knees rather than her.

People part for them, as they move through town, and that is perhaps when the gravity truly sinks in; these are feline assassins, perfectly trained to do their jobs, and yet Bird is being brought to _Aoife_instead of being killed. And the boy is innocent, after all, having done nothing at all - so why had they chased him once the ship had hit port, and why had he run for days on end?

It is a few hours' walk, and he really is fatigued. And he droops, just slightly, wings curling inward. He only realizes he has slept when he wakes on the floor of a neatly kept office, his face pressed against the carpet and his wings curled around his body to create some unconscious cocoon. The remnants of his clothes are gone, and he is clothed only in the dried stains from his wounds.

"He's awake. Giorgo, his wounds." That voice, powerful, commanding, must be Aoife's.

Giorgo is a raven, a real bird. He has a bird's beak and a bird's eyes, and a bird's clever talons. Bird aches, and so he makes no struggle when this man carries him and lowers him into a bath. It is he with his black feathers and another with sweet, blue plumage that bathe him, gently coaxing the blood from his flesh.

It takes a long time, and by the time he lifts Bird from the water it has turned a rusty red. He sets bandages aside, and Bird studies the other's face, the proud curve of his beak, his black eyes, the mottled scars on his left cheek, as he is bandaged and dressed in a white and sleeveless gown.

Giorgo and the other - Esme - spread his wings out, beginning to groom them, and he is so tired. He hurts, and he aches, and he cannot bring himself to move from the stool they settle him on so they can work. He faces away from their commander, and he cannot bring himself to turn his head to look at her.

Bird is not certain whether it is fear or patience that affect him not to do so, but either way, he does not so much as glance.

"Now." Pain. He struggles, now, finding new strength, and the screams that come from his mouth are deafening as his flight feathers are swiftly clipped too close to their bases, and they do not bleed but they thrum with agony.

He drops to his knees once the feathers all drop to the floor, gasping for breath. "Bird." He looks up, slowly, the simple raise of his head too much effort, and he looks at her. Aoife is a lioness, and she regards him with an expression that is almost sympathetic.

She coos softly at him, and she drops to her knees also - she is taller than him, and larger, and stronger. Bird is crying, and tears run down his hairless cheeks: her reaction is to grasp him gently and pull him close, his head in her lap, her hands stroking so very_gently_ through the thick curls of his hair.

He cannot struggle. Everything hurts and the pain in his wings is a distraction further, and when she whispers, "Such a pretty little bird." he cannot even voice his confusion, because his lips are dry and his throat is parched for thirst and scratching worse for his having screamed.

She feeds him, then, small pieces of fruit pressed to his lips until he takes them from her fingers, his eyes tightly closed as if that will save him from the indignity of it. He does not know what is_happening._

He is put to bed, and he is put to bed in a room with little light and bars on the only window. He sleeps, because he has to. He tosses, and he turns, because he is scared, but he sleeps because he has to.

Bird wakes to a warm hand spread on his chest, pressing down, pressure. He gasps awake, and it is Daniella, regarding him intently with amber eyes that are undilated, her pupils barely slits. He takes in a shuddering gasp, the action an effort, and she releases him before stepping back, gesturing with one finger for him to rise and follow her.

Because he has no other options, he does so.