FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The back of the flatbed juddered as it rocked across the back roads towards the border, the heavy twelve cylinder engine rumbling loudly in the cool night air, echoing around the hills and making their exact position hard to tell to any who might have heard them anyway. They drove without lights, keeping a cautious eye on the road ahead as illuminated by the scant bit of moonlight that shone down through the thick pine canopy surrounding their path. The stars above twinkled peacefully, and looking at them for long enough, one could almost be forgiven for forgetting that there was a civil war raging throughout the lands surrounding them.

A pair of stocky looking attack fighters rushed overhead, oblivious to their presence as their jet trails streaked off towards the horizon. The small convoy of trucks only halted long enough to let them pass before continuing onward, cruising and churning the muddy road beneath their tires as they passed through small hamlets and villages, many little more than scattered collections of blasted and bombed out houses. The few that were still inhabited dimmed any lights as the trucks approached, ever wary and unsure of just whose side anybody was on anymore.

The initial war had been to reclaim their homeland from their oppressive neighbor, and overthrow the puppet men that had replaced their honest government, restoring the nation to its rightful sovereignty. That was the Nationalists. Shortly after, a large portion of the country had defected back to their neighbors, claiming they were better off before all of this had begun, with the comfort of a larger, better equipped army behind them, along with promises of food and desperately needed medical help that had been disrupted and spotty since the war began. Those were the United Federation.

Then, surprisingly to both factions, a third faction had suddenly emerged overnight, catching several troops in sudden and precise ambushes in the dead of night, gunning down hundreds on both sides before vanishing into the southern reaches of the Garat mountains, impassable and inhospitable tundra reaches that stretched to the heavens, fortifying and declaring their own slice of the country as a free and independent entity. They were hostile to all those who would dare infringe upon their lands. Those were the Garat Rebels, as they had come to be known, and despite their lack of much of the quality equipment the other two factions had, what few high end weapons they did they used to devastating effect, and they had somehow snaked in high ranking officers from both sides to help lead their newly founded country.

And so while the rest of the world watched on from behind their holo-screens and antique television sets, the small nation had torn itself into three pieces, waring for control of the other two. Just who would emerge victorious however was anybody's guess at this point. In the last month, everything had ground to an inevitable ceasefire while all three rival factions had taken stock and consolidated their forces, buried their dead, and rearmed their living with fresh reinforcements and ammunition from the rear. Deals for supplies were struck, prisoners and small patches of land here and there on the borders were traded like livestock to sale, and the war continued to grind on in silence. But like the calm before the storm, all peace had to end eventually...

The scenery would have at least broken up the monotony of the trip, but Laurence couldn't see any of it anyway on account of the black bag tied over his head, nor could he comment on it thanks to the ball gag in his muzzle. The dark scaled dragon was a strike wing leader of the Nationalist air force, and what was left of his plane was embedded in pieces somewhere in the side of the weapons factory his wing had been sent to destroy. His bombs had fallen short, and a lucky shot from one of the tri-barreled anti-aircraft platforms had shorn his left wing clean from his plane, and his body as well, losing both means of flight to a single well placed shell.

The tightly wrapped bandages around his shoulder still stung where the ragged stump of what had remained after the impact and ejection force had been amputated, leaving him with his right wing folded flush against his back. The first time he had seen himself in a mirror in the POW camp, he had wanted to break down then and there, but he couldn't afford to be weak now. Not so close to being returned home... Perhaps once everything was over, his payout could afford him a prosthetic wing and a small place in the foothills where he could spend his days soaring on thermals like he had as a child...

It was a pipe dream, and he knew it, but the thought gave him hope, so he clung to it like a drowning man to a life buoy. It wasn't entirely farfetched after all... Still, after twenty two successful missions, he'd finally run out of luck, and now here he was, bumping through god only knew where for who knew how long until they reached the border, where the prisoner exchange had been set to take place. So close to freedom he could all but smell it...

The lurch of inertia told him they had stopped, and the squeaking of poorly maintained brakes echoed out into the low hills as the trucks pulled to a stop. Sudden, glaringly bright light pierced through the black veil of his bag, a loud voice shouting through a megaphone at the Federation trucks.

"Close enough! Dismount and bring your prisoners to the clearing. Keep your weapons lowered, and we'll have this over nice and cleanly." Laurence knew that was almost certainly going to turn out to be a lie. From the scattered reports he'd heard and the chattering of his guards at the POW camp, he'd learned that there had already been five prisoner swaps between the warring factions, and only one of them hadn't ended in a bloodbath on both sides involved. His heart was racing as two sets of arms roughly dragged him backwards, and for a moment, he felt gravity seize him as he was ungracefully shoved backwards over the waist high railing of the truck's bed, landing heavily on his back in the mud below.

His shoulder shot pain through his nerves in agonizing protest, and he managed to roll away from his injured side, a muffled shout of pain escaping his gagged muzzle. His captors dragged him upright, and marched him towards the lights he could make out in the direction of the Nationalist forces. Judging by their height, they were mounted on vehicles of some sort, and the familiar rumbling of armoured, heavy duty engines was as reassuring to him as the lack of gunfire. The Nationalists had brought armoured fighting vehicles and APC's to the exchange. From the lack of other vehicles he had heard on his trip here, the Federation had not. That was good. If one side was seriously outgunned, there was less likely to be any gunfight erupting this time...

The ropes binding him were beginning to chafe against his wrists, rubbing the scales down painfully, but he did his best to ignore it, more focused on not tripping as he was essentially dragged towards the clearing between sides, still unable to see a damned thing but the blindingly bright spotlights.

"Alright. Bring her forwards, and take the bags off!" The Nationalist commander shouted through his bullhorn, and Laurence was shoved down onto his knees, the sharp racking of a rifle being coked directly to his rear reminding him sternly that he wasn't out of the woods just yet. He heard more footsteps approaching from the front, this time followed by a scuffling of someone clearly resisting this entire ordeal with every step. Had his ears heard right though? A her?? It was almost unheard of in the Nationalist forces to have women fighting in their armed forces. Such was a man's duty and pride. The woman's was to be at home, caring for the house and children, the next generation to inherit what they left behind. To be traded for a woman was almost an insult to his pride. Rely on the Federation to stoop to such levels as their neighboring overlords...

With a sharp rip that clacked his teeth together, the bag was ungracefully torn from his head, forcing his muzzle up as it slapped across his draconic features, and he instinctively shied from the light while his eyes adjusted to the stark change in brightness. Before him in the mud stood a pair of Nationalist troops, their distinctive brown uniforms and berets along with last-gen rifles kept trained on the female prisoner kneeling between them. One of the troops reached down, ripping her ball gag out of the Vixen's muzzle, but not before she managed to turn and snap at his fingers, bringing her sharp teeth down a hairsbreadth away from taking one of the digits off at the knuckle.

"Fucker! Try doing that again! I'll take your whole goddamn paw off!" She snarled, defiant to the last. A swift rifle butt to the base of her spine silenced her quickly enough though, and it was clear from the tattered and torn sky blue uniform she wore, she had gotten as good as she had apparently given to her captors. Covered in dirt, blood stains and grime as she was though, she looked like she had been through hell and back just to end up here, at what could easily become the next big bloodbath gossip at some other POW camp...

"Names, unit and ranks. Now!" One the the dragon's captors shouted, and Laurence rolled his neck upon his shoulders.

"Captain Terruay, L. 53rd Nationalist Strike Wing Sky Furys." He called out to the silhouetted men behind the spotlights, praying to himself that this didn't go south in a hurry.

"Field Intelligence Officer Third Class Sartova, S. Bureau of Federation Intelligence Reconnaissance Task Force 2." The female across from him shouted in turn, glaring at him as if it was insulting to her that she was being exchanged for such a lowly soldier as himself. So his freedom was being purchased for that of a spook, who could potentially know far more than any interrogation would have revealed, and could once exchanged freely go right ahead and tell her masters everything she had learned while being held in captivity.

His heart sank. It wasn't going to happen. Alarm bells had started ringing in his head, and instinctively, he started looking for the nearest available hard cover that might protect him long enough to make a break for it. There was no way they would let her go in exchange for a simple attack pilot. It was just a great ploy to draw them into an ambush, and he had been the the meat on the sacrificial altar in order to draw them out.

Sure enough, a moment later, the spotlights abruptly shut off, and the next lights to appear had been the sporadic blinks of muzzle flash from over three dozen rifles. The air became a hornets lair, buzzing with exchanged rounds from each opposing force. Laurence took a dive to the side, scrambling on his chest and pushing with his knees as he managed to wedge his back up against a small pile of rocks beside a shallow ditch, just low enough to conceal him if he kept his head pressed all the way down into the dirt. His missing wing's base flared up with fresh pain, and he swore the stitches must have torn beneath the bandages covering it.

The chattering of small arms fire was quickly drowned out by the shill, deep ratatat of a mounted heavy weapon joining the fray, and he blinked as clots of dirt were chewed out of the ground, a line of tracers stitching across the ground a scant yard in front of his hiding spot. From off to the side, he heard the muted puff-thump of a shoulder launched weapon firing, but then something else joined in, or rather, someone else.

A sudden warcry roared from the edge of the clearing, as new, sharper whip-crack reports that could only be railguns joined in on the fray, leaving glowing after images on his retinas where the hyper-velocity slugs had displaced the air in their wake. So the Garat Rebels were here too now. Fan-freaking-tastic! One of the Nationalist vehicles immediately ceased firing, a finger width sized hole in one side of the hull marking the entry point of the rail slug. On the opposite side, one would no doubt find a matching, somewhat larger hole and a long red streak stretching out where the crew and everything not bolted down had been simply ripped from the interior of the vehicle by the velocity of the shot.

Where the hell the Rebels had gotten railguns, nobody was quite sure, but they had only been seen in a scant few engagements, and it was estimated only a few such units actually existed. For them to bring one here and risk it for a prisoner exchange could mean only one thing. There was a whole lot more to that intelligence officer than anyone else had let on. He stuck his head out of his hole in the ground long enough to spot her, a few dozen yards away taking cover behind a tree stump that had apparently been blasted from the former tree only a few moments ago, if the glowing embers of the stump were any indicator.

Somewhere during the confusion, she had managed to get her bindings free, and was now wielding pistol in one paw, and a mean looking combat blade in the other, taking pot shots at anyone who strayed too close to her, friend or foe alike. He wasn't quite sure what compelled him to roll out of his cover, shuffle-crawling his way over the open field towards her. He paused by the corpse of one of his former captors, managing to wrestle the now dead wolf's blade free from its sheath and cut his bindings, before he scooped up the fallen troopers rifle, and checked the magazine counter. There was only a handful of rounds left, but it was better than nothing. A rapid chattering of machine gun fire and a string of impacts nearby convinced him it was time to get the hell out of here already, and with a burst of stamina that made his weakened body ache in protest, he darted across the field. Despite having had better ideas, he inelegantly tackled the now surprised looking vixen to the ground, using his superior strength to wrench the pistol from her paws and toss it aside. After a few moments of confused scuffling though, he ended up atop of her, his rifle's barrel jammed up against her back, as she unleashed a string of creative curses at him..

"Alright! Enough! Put the knife down!" She struggled a few moments more, before conceding the point, and letting the blade drop from her paw with a frustrated snarl. A sudden shout from his left made his whip around, and he let off an extended burst, dropping one of the newly appeared rebel troops with a muted thud as the corpse his attacker hit the dirt. It was all the distraction the Vixen needed though, and she elbowed him hard in the groin. It was a cheap shot, but the effect was instant, and Laurence rolled off of her, groaning in pain. She snatched the rifle from his loosened grip with far too much ease, and rounded it on him, pulling the trigger. 'Click', was the only noise that came from it, and she discarded the now empty weapon, instead kicking him in the face. Hard.

He would have sworn his nose broke there, but fortunately, her kick only glanced him, a convenient side effect from the stun round that had hit her in the chest. She dropped, shuddering from head to toe as several hundred thousand volts coursed through her body, rendering her entire nervous system as utterly useless in the current situation as a plate of jelly. The next stunner hit him square in the chest a second later, and before too long, he had blacked out from the pain lancing along his limbs and body like wildfire.

The first thing Laurence noticed upon returning to consciousness was the cold. His breath fogged even before it had left his nostrils, and every piece of exposed scale on him felt stinging from the frigged chill that permeated the air much as humidity would in a swamp. Though by comparison, the swamp at least might have been somewhat more bearable... He had been stripped of his fatigues somewhere between being shot and waking, left to stand naked in the ice-encrusted cell. The walls seemed to be made of the stuff, carved into the depths of some glacier or similar terrain feature. He had heard rumors of the Rebels making their bases within the mountains and ice itself, but clearly they had been true at least in this case.

Involuntarily, he shivered from his toes to the horns on his head, tucking his arms against his chest in a feeble attempt to stave off the cold. It seeped into the soft pads of his feet like water into a sponge, and before long, he quickly came to the realization that he was almost certainly going to freeze to death in here without warmth...

The solid steel door to his cell thudded as someone on the opposite side knocked once, the view-slit built into it's frame sliding open. A pair of angry, bloodshot eyes glared in at him. "TURN AROUND! ARMS AGAINST THE BACK WALL! NOW!" He didn't hesitate. Doing so at this point would surely be the fastest way to catch a bullet between his eyes.

The door was all but kicked open from outside the moment he was in position, and he heard a scuffle, and several loud thumps as someone else was thrown into the cell with him, along with a single duffle bag. The door slammed shut a moment later, and he heard the familiar, eternally pissed of voice of the Vixen as she shouted after her new captors. "Fucking run and hide behind your doors! You're trapped in here with me now!" She taunted them furiously, before turning to look at the dragon who now shared her cell, incredulousness on her features.

"YOU!"

Before he had time to fully appreciate the situation, she was on him, and a fearsome left hook clocked his jaw hard enough that he saw stars, staggering into the wall before slipping on the ice underfoot and landing in a pile on the unforgivingly cold floor. "Do you realize what you've done?! I was THIS close..." She pinched her thumb and forefinger together, and it was only now in his dazed state that he realized that she too had been stripped of her uniform, left naked to endure the icy chill of the cell.

"...to being free and putting an end to this entire war, and then you come crashing in from stage right and ruin it all! Do you know how many months of careful planning and manipulation you undid in your one moment of misplaced duty? Do you!?" She kicked him in the head again for good measure, but this time, it did connect, and it hurt like hell.

Snarling in pent up frustration, she paced back and forth across the small cell, growling and baring her teeth at him every time he so much as cast a glance in her direction. Her foot lashed out again, and he curled into a ball on the floor to protect his torso and head from any further hits. He was too sore and exhausted to fight back at this point, and the cold had sapped all will to do anything from his limbs.

"Don't look! Pervert. I should have shot you when you were in your hole." She snapped, picking up the duffle bag and setting it on the crudely carved slab of ice on one side of the cell that rose about a foot from the floor; The single bed in here, apparently. She began pulling items from the bag in rapid succession, setting them down beside herself as she did. A single set of thick, orange fatigues. A single bright orange sleeping bag and mat. A small battery powered lantern. That was it. Two people, and basic supplies to survive in the below freezing cell for one. It was quickly clear the sinister genius behind the Rebel's prisoner control. Two per cell with supplies for one, and leave them to sort it out.

He went to rise quickly, hoping to take her off guard and get a good blow in before she could react, but with a casual ease, she flicked her heel up, and caught him across the temple, knocking him back to the ground with her foot. "Stay down, Dragon, if you want to make it out of this alive." She snapped, taking the shirt and tearing off the sleeves, making a crude wrap by tying them together, and using it to bind her chest enough to provide some modesty. The pants she also quickly pulled on, before tossing the now vest that was left of the prison shirt onto his head.

"Put it on. It's more important to keep your core warm in these cells. Your limbs will ache and probably go numb, but you'll survive a few days at least." She commented with a cold regard that sounded as if it came from experience. There was clearly much, much more to this spook than met the eye. She pulled the sleeping pad out and set it atop the crude bed, before unrolling the compressed sleeping bag, and unzipping the thickly padded fabric, laying it out like a blanket on top of that.

"Cold seeps in from beneath. You're better off having more underneath you than on top of you in these, but it'll only take a few days before this gets waterlogged. Assuming they haven't shot us by then, hypothermia should set in around day six if we're lucky, and we'll be dead by ten, maybe fourteen at latest if they don't stop feeding us before then." She made her assessment as blunt and cynically as could have been possible, and it didn't exactly fill him with hope.

"And if I kill you before then?" Laurence growled, sitting up and slowly rising to his feet. She didn't even seem to pay attention to his threat in the slightest, instead climbing up onto the bed and pulling the blanket up over her legs.

"I've already knocked you down three times with just my left leg. If you really want to try again, go for it. Otherwise, put the damned top on and get up here before you freeze to death and I use your corpse for spare meat. You're wasting body heat, reptile." Her flat gaze unsettled him to the very core, and he felt a slight flush of embarrassment at being ordered around by a woman while he was still so... exposed. He pulled the vest on regardless, though it did little to give him any modesty, the thin slit of his concealed maleness not hidden in the slightest. He climbed up beside her reluctantly, and pulled part of the sleeping bag over himself as well, leaving the pair of them sitting in awkward silence, just staring at the opposite wall of the cell.

"How'd you lose your wing?" She asked after a moment. Her tone wasn't caring, and didn't even sound particularly interested to actually hear his story, more like she was simply trying to pass the time more productively than waiting for the ice of the cell to melt.

"Anti-air fire. Tore my plane in half, took my wing with the left engine." He returned his answer with just as much enthusiasm, still not wanted to chance getting any closer to the Vixen. She rolled her eyes at his awkwardness, noticing it as easily as he felt it, and promptly gave him a helping shove down onto the sleeping bag, before laying herself down beside him.

"You're stuck in here with me. Get used to it. Now lay down. They'll be coming for one of us here soon, and since you've got nothing of value, my money is that it will be me. I'd rather be well rested for interrogation, if it's all the same to you." She made no attempts to get any closer to him, just laying quietly without actually touching him. The proximity would have to do. She clearly wanted nothing to do with Nationalist scum like himself, and frankly, that was just fine by him. First opportunity, he'd make his escape and attempt to secure some way back to friendly lines...

He shut his eyes, trying to let himself relax enough to drift into an uneasy sleep, but none came despite his best attempts. He was still trying to work out just what had happened to lead to this point. The ambush at the exchange must have been organized, but somehow, he doubted that had been part of this Vixen spooks plan. There must have been a leak somewhere in the chain that had tipped off the Rebels to just who was being exchanged. The border between the Nationalists and the Federation was on the opposite side of the country from the Rebel controlled mountain forts. It would have been a serious risk trying to move their force into position to intercept.

He pondered that for a long while, just waiting for anything to break the monotony. The only other sound in the cell was the vixen's quiet breathing, slow, measured breaths. It took him a moment to work out she wasn't actually sleeping either. "What's your name?" He asked out of the blue. They had been laying there for what must have been an easy few hours, but with no source of reference to the time, it could have just as easily been minutes or days.

She didn't respond for a long moment, before finally speaking up. "It's not important."

"Well unless you would rather discuss the weather; Maybe the scenery? Or how about the current outlook of things, hmmm? Would that suit you more?" He began sarcastically, but a swift knee into his spine cut him off.

"Sasha, if it's so important to you. And what should I call you, hmm? One wing? He-who-tumbles? Righty?" The insults bit, and he barely managed to contain a growl of annoyance, fighting back the urge to simply throttle her here and now.

"Laurence. Why did they want you so badly? You said you had this exchange planned for months, and now what? What could be so important that it warranted sending an entire strike team across the country to get you?"

She paused, as if debating if she should tell him or not, but indecision quickly gave way to duty. He was still the enemy after all. "I cannot say. And it'll be better for you here if you don't know anything either."

He never got a chance to question that, the metal slit in the doorway slapping open as their captors shouted in. "AGAINST THE WALL, NOW!" Neither of them argued the command, and three troopers stormed in, forcefully dragging Sasha from the cell before he could have done anything about it. The door slammed shut as they left, the heavy clunk of a lock falling into place ringing out, and then, silence.

He was alone again.

Time ticked onwards, and Laurence spent most of his time curled up in the sleeping bag, trying to conserve what warmth he had. There was just enough room in the cell to stretch his one remaining wing out completely if he pressed his wounded side into the doorway, and every so often he made sure to stretch himself out outside of the covers to avoid cramping. There wasn't exactly much else he could do to pass the time.

If the meager meals that were slid in through a slot at the bottom of the door were any indication of the passing of the hours though, he had been alone some two days before Sasha was finally dragged back into his cell, beaten and bloodied to be deposited on the icy floor like a sack of flour. She shivered faintly, her russet orange fur stained with dirt and blood and who knew what else. Looking at her black socked paws, it was quickly clear she'd also had several of her claws torn out forcefully.

As soon as the cell door was shut again, Laurence knelt down by her, and hefted the much smaller female up in his paws, setting her down in the sleeping bag and pulling it up tightly around her once again naked body. Groggily, she opened one eye, and managed the slightest nod of thanks before it drifted closed again, to exhausted to remain conscious.

There wasn't much talk after that, even after Sasha came too again. She was bruised and hurting, and what little she did say in her fitful resting only seemed to confirm Laurence's suspicions that something far, far bigger than him and Sasha both was at play here. Whatever sort of techniques they had used to get her to speak, he could only assume they had been unsuccessful. People who gave their secrets weren't kept alive, and the ones who finally cracked under torture weren't beaten half to death and left in their cell.

Whatever she knew, it must have been war changing... Slowly, he reached one paw up from her waist where he lay with the quietly sleeping vulpine, shaking her shoulder softly in an attempt to rouse her. They had both since abandoned any notion of the otherwise almost intimate contact being awkward. It was either that or the biting cold that would set in within minutes outside of the sleeping bag. She stirred faintly for a few moments, tilting her head up slightly and opening one eye to look at him questioningly.

"Meal?" She asked, a hint of hopefulness in her voice. He shook his head slowly, and her expression turned to one of disappointment. Their last meal had been at midday yesterday. Nothing had been delivered since, and nobody had been to collect the tray either, the plates set upon it clearly a meal made for one. They had shared the scraps of bread and vaguely vegetable flavored soup that was more of a thinly veiled water before it had a chance to freeze.

"Not yet..." He tried to at least hang on to the hope that one was coming. They had both already lost some weight due to the hunger that constantly made itself known. "What was it you found out that they would go to such lengths to discover it?" He asked her quietly, keeping his voice barely at a whisper. He didn't know if the cell was bugged or not, and it was better not to take the risk on the off chance it was.

"Huh? Nuh-uh... I can't say... You're the enemy, remember?" She mumbled groggily, the barest hint of genuine amusement at his ignorance in her voice, though the way she spoke was as if she wasn't entirely conscious, her torture having sapped her strength to bare minimum levels, and the lack of food wasn't helping any with that...

"We'll both be dead in a few days at this rate. It'd be nice to know what for..." He countered with a slight hiss, but she gave him a soft elbow to the stomach behind her, barely noticeable.

"Nuh uh... Still the enemy Laurence. I thought dragons were supposed to be smarter than that..." She chuckled as if laughing at a joke only she understood. He felt a pang of sympathy towards her... Since she'd gotten back, she hadn't tried to kill him at least; If anything, she had been almost nice to him on the few occasions she had been conscious enough to make coherent conversation, like his mere presence was of a slight comfort to her... That thought led to another, one that lent itself an explanation for her behavior, and her knowledge of the cells they stayed in. She had been imprisoned here before; It was the only thing that made sense. He sighed, before asking in a hushed breath, praying to himself that his hunch was right. It wasn't exactly like he had much to lose even if he was wrong. At this point, Sasha's presence was just as comforting to him...

"Who was he? The man you were in these cells with last time?"

She didn't bother trying to sound fatigued or sleepy this time, rather, stiffening in his arms, before she relaxed, quickly guessing how he had worked it out. She hadn't exactly tried to be subtle about it after all, and scolded herself mentally for her lack of secrecy around him... He was still the enemy, but... He was right... At this point, escape didn't seem likely. It was a grim thought to come to terms with, but Laurence might well be the last friendly face she ever saw.

"He was... My old pilot. Special forces like me; He dropped myself and two other agents at an airstrip held by the rebels under the guise of diplomats, but it all turned pear shaped when one of the soldiers recognized the other agent with me. She was killed, and myself and Ishtar were captured. Heck, we might even be in the same cell now, I wouldn't be able to tell. They all look the same..." She paused, reaching one paw out and gently running it across the icy wall, leaving a slight gouge in the otherwise pristine surface with the one claw remaining on her right index finger.

"We had been... Involved for a while. Nothing deeply personal, just... Comfort, you know? War is hell after all. Then after fifteen days they came for us both, dragged us outside with a group of other prisoners and lined us up against the top of the cliff here... Ishtar pushed me over the edge before the firing squad opened up... Somehow, I survived the fall and managed to drag myself far enough away to get a working vehicle and escape across the border, and that was when I was captured again by your lot... Pretty much all there is to it." She was quiet for a long moment after that, just blankly looking at the wall, her paw brushing over it like a lover's skin.

"He sounds like as good a man as any. This country needs more people like that." Laurence broke the silence, gently brushing his scaled paw across the fur of her shoulder, rubbing her sore muscles with his palm carefully, trying to ease some of her aches away.

At that, she managed a laugh, even if it was only a single 'Ha!', shaking her head with the slightest smile on her lips. She may have been bruised, beaten and bloodied, but somehow, that smile on her orange furred face still shined through like a beacon of hope and goodness in a situation that had no happy endings. Laurence couldn't help but smile with her. It was a single ray of hope, and perhaps, that in itself was more than he had known for weeks since his first capture.

"Yeah... Yeah, he was... You remind me of him, you know? Not physically, he was a weasel, and short for that, but... Just the way you are... Make me a promise, Laurence." She didn't so much ask as she ordered him, shifting about in his arms until she was facing him. Her eyes were an icy blue, almost the same as the walls. He was surprised he hadn't noticed that before; They were actually quite stunning, in all honesty... He nodded, listening intently.

"Don't die... Too many good guys already have." She blinked, rolling her neck. "And..." She paused, biting her lip almost... Nervously? "...If you make it that far... Look me up. Once everything is over, you know? It's hard enough to find people who can relate." She paused, her icy eyes meeting his own, seeming to waver slightly when he looked back down at her with his own mossy greens. Something overtook him at that moment, and he wasn't sure why he did it, but it happened entirely irrespective of his mind's will.

He kissed her softly on the lips, the lightest, feathery peck, with the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks. She flushed redder than even he did, but she didn't berate him for the gesture, just dipped her chin down and hid it against the chest of his shirt. "Thanks..." She whispered, and put her own paws around him. They embraced, simply hugging each other like that for a long few minutes in silence, taking comfort each in holding and being held, the simple gesture of feeling warm and protected blocking out the reality of their situation. And for those few minutes, Laurence considered himself fortunate to be alive, and Sasha simply enjoyed the moment for what it was and was happy enough with that.

"Just comfort, right?" Laurence asked once they had both relaxed into each other, and Sasha raised her head to look at him, quirking an eyebrow. Even as she did, one of her paws shifted, rubbing down the length of his stomach with slow, deliberate movements. She guessed correctly where the dragon had assumed this was going to end up, skipping to the chase, so to speak, not that she'd have run if she wanted to. She'd be damned before she spent her last day waiting for the end to come quietly.

"Comfort, mhmm..." She managed a soft laugh, possibly the most pleasant sound Laurence had ever heard, even as he paw roamed down below the bottom of his shirt. She was biting her lip again, clearly focusing on her task at paw rather than the fact she was breaking almost every single rule about fraternizing with the enemy. Not that it would have mattered at that point, circumstances considering.

"So is this the part where we-" She placed her free paw over his mouth, silencing him mid sentence.

"Shut up dragon. You talk too much." With that, she removed her paw, and kissed him. It was more than just a little peck, more of a full forced make out that could have put a regular Casanova to shame. He didn't make any attempt to resist it, nor did he make any move to pull his bulging slit away from her paw, coaxing his maleness from its hiding place.

She stroked him with long, luxurious brushes of her paw as their tongues danced between their muzzles. Death could have come knocking for either of them at any moment, but they didn't care, seeking out one final hurrah before the long night came for them both. His length curled and flexed within her soft paw's grip, the tip twitching about and she gathered the preseed leaking from him, using it to lubricate him from tip to base. Her soft leathery paw pads were like silk pillows against his sensitive flesh, and he couldn't help the soft groans that escaped into her muzzle, until she tapped his nose. "Shhhh. No talking... I need this as much as you..."

Carefully, she rolled her hips from side to side, rocking in closer to him until his length was pressing against the soft fur of her belly, smearing his mess into her fur. Her breasts mashed against his scaled pecs, each movement stimulating her hard nipples, though if it was from arousal or the cold was anyones guess. Laurence liked to think it was the former of the two. Sasha's own soft moans slipped from her throat and into his muzzle as they kissed like it was their last night on earth. Potentially, it was, and that made the moment seem all that more important.

Her paw around him adjusted his girth as it writhed about between their stomachs like a trapped serpent, and she let out a quiet grunt as she tugged him down, adjusting his aim until he felt his tapered tip press against a warm, soft opening. "Ahh... Right there..." She moaned as he rocked his hips forwards, slipping into her body with relative ease that such a narrow tip aided. His girth quickly thickened though as he pressed more into her, the vixen's mouth hanging open as she panted silently.

"G...Gentle... You're thicker than I'm used to..." She cautioned him quietly, and he slowed, rocking himself into her depths with gentle, steady thrusts, the pair setting into a quiet rhythm as if to music only they could hear, pushing and pulling against each other in almost perfect harmony beneath the sleeping bag's covers. Her body welcomed him with a hot, inviting embrace, her innermost muscles gripping and pulling him deeper still as he rocked into her, massaging his length from base to tip with rippling motions.

It was hard to hold himself back with such a tight female around his length, but he managed admirably under the circumstances, determined to let her enjoy the experience as well. He wanted at least one of his last moments to be something to remember... His paws lowered themselves to her hips, gripping at her waist and running through her soft, downy fur. It was like silk beneath his scales, and he lathed over every little detail of her body as they sought their comfort in each other's bodies.

She slid down onto him effortlessly, pulling him closer still as she sought to pull them as close as two people could be, orange fur pressed against dark scales as she rode his maleness, rocking her hips in time with his shallow thrusting, the exotic length of the male bringing her all kinds of pleasures she would have never experienced otherwise. In a way, she was happy that it was happening as it had, and she relaxed her body's grip on him enough to allow him entirely within her sacred womanhood, filling herself completely with the male.

When he finally nestled himself hilted within her body, she was stretched out to her limits, struggling to contain the male sheathed against her innermost sanctum. Slowly at first, but gaining more confidence as she adjusted to his size, she began to roll her hips in slow, but measured circles. In turn, he began to twist and bend his prehensile length to her motions, touching against all those sensitive pleasure centers against her inner walls. His tip found its way to the opening of her cervix, pushing past the final barrier to her womb with a single, sharp thrust of his pelvis against her.

She finished a minute before his will to hold out finally failed him, her body arching sharply and going rigid as she bit his lower lip, her body tightening and gripping his dragonhood like a vice as her juices coated her scales and flesh in their warmth. He continued to move throughout her peak, prolonging and drawing out the pleasure for her as long as he could. In turn, his length stiffened and straightened like an arrow, pointing the way for the first jets of his seed to paint her womb with his marking. His length pulsed as his internally hidden testes tightened, throbbing with his heartbeat as life giving seed spilled into her inviting body, and pooled messily at the bottom of her womb.

Each spurt brought with it a jolt of pleasure that raced along his spine like lightning, and for a moment, he saw stars, before all to soon, it was over, the last dregs of his offering leaking from the point of his tip, and the acute pleasure of climax giving way to a pleasant haze of endorphins. Both came down from their highs on their own time, with shallow pants and glazed expressions of pleasure.

Neither spoke. There were no words that could add anything more meaningful to the moment, and so they were contented with their lot, bleak as it was for just a few moments. Sasha snuggled herself up against the dragon's chest, resting her head against his shoulder, enjoying the new warmth that radiated from her very core and renewed her sense of wellbeing. A soft smile was written across her features, and without thinking, she placed a quick, grateful peck upon the dragon's nose.

"Thank you, Laurence... I needed that..."

Laurence just chuckled, pulling her tightly against himself. If he was going to die, at least he'd have a hell of a story to tell the guys when he saw them again. "You're welcome, Sasha."

Unfortunately, as it was to become, the tender moment ended far sooner than either would have wanted it to. This time, there was no knocking, no shouted command. The door to the cell burst open a half an hour later with a rolling cloud of tear gas. A klaxon began to sound through the cell block as everyone was rounded up and pushed through the seemingly endless corridor of cells by rifle and gas-mask wielding troops.

Panic shot up in Laurence's chest as they were herded like cattle, watching as the forms of other emaciated prisoners were shoved and dragged from their cells kicking and screaming. A few were hauled out not moving at all, their bodies glazed over like the frost had consumed them. Others that they passed by had vague shapes he could make out, between rapid furious blinks to try and clear his eyes of the stinging, of naked figures who had simply laid down on the floors of their cells and let the cold overcome them, their fur coated in frost and ice; A kinder fate perhaps than what awaited them...

For a few moments, he thought he had lost Sasha in the panicked crowd, but a paw shot out from the masses and gripped his own tightly, being dragged along by the momentum of the mob. There was a few warning shots from the back of the hallway where they had been forced from; Guards executed those who refused to move, no doubt. They pushed ahead faster now, fear radiating from every scantily dressed and ragged looking body pressing in around them.

They burst from the fog of the tear gas onto the flat, leveled ice of the man-made plateau cut out of the side of the icy mountain that seemed to tower above them to the very edge of space above. Icy dread made him freeze on the spot though when he saw the long, single file line of prisoners forming along the edge of the flat, icy surface, their backs pressed to a metaphorical wall of nothingness behind them, to their front a long line of soldiers with rifles raised. Sasha pulled him along with her now, striding to meet her fate with a determined look in her eyes.

"Laurence. The Vogue. Partama Village. Golden crowns adorn the fool. Remember!" She snapped at him with the sort of fierce, furious passion he had first seen in her at the exchange that had gone horribly wrong. They came to a halt, and he chanced a glance over the edge. The ground was far... far below, coated in the blanket white of winter. He managed a nod, not entirely comprehending what she was telling him, but he never had the time to ask.

"Prisoners! By order of the Lord General Maxwell, this complex is to be cleared in wake of advancing enemy forces! For you all, unfortunately, that means that you cannot come with us, nor can you be allowed to be recaptured. Pray that your gods have mercy on your souls! Detail! Ready!"

As one, the soldiers covering them snapped their rifles up, the sound of dozens of bolts being drawn back and snapping rounds into chambers piercing the silence that had overtaken the mass of the captured. There must have been a hundred or more of them lined there against the wall, the cold of the air around them biting even less that the fear that had gripped them.

"Aim!"

Sasha was suddenly there in front of him, her fierce green eyes meeting his own and her lips pressing to the dragon's own in a final, passionate kiss. She pulled back, smirking at him. "Don't die dragon." She whispered, her paws lightly brushing over his chest in a gentle gesture of affection.

"FIRE!"

Before he had a chance to say anything, her paws shoved against his chest, and Laurence Terruay, Captain of the 53rd Nationalist Strike Wing Sky Fury's, half dressed and with one wing left on his dark scaled back, plummeted over the edge, and fell below the line of the icy cliff's edge, his eyes wide with terror and realization as he fell, watching the prison camp's plateau shrink away above him.

Gunfire erupted, and he knew beyond a doubt that Sasha was no more. Tumbling end over end towards the ground, he let out a scream, trying frantically to right himself in his descent. He managed to tuck his one remaining wing flush against his back, spreading his arms and legs out in an attempt to bleed off airspeed and control his free fall, finally righting himself chest down. He quickly snapped his wing back out, and lurched in a violent roll to the left as the snow below quickly rushed up to meet him. No good, not enough control!

Laurence hit the snow bank and disappeared in a cloud of white. He saw black.

And then, a few moments later, his lungs reminded him he needed to breath, and he gasped, kicking his paws and his wing outwards to clear the snow that quickly threatened to bury him there. Beneath him, the rotted and ragged and fraying lines of a cargo net, long since sunk into the snow that had prevented him from simply hitting the snow and going through it like a lawn dart, were pulled taut under the weight of his impact. He managed to clamber around and pull himself back to the surface where the snow had piled up heavily against the edge of the mountain, looking up with a ray of hope, expecting to see Sasha falling down right behind him, but after a moment, he knew he wasn't going to be seeing her again...

He couldn't stay here though, and it would do him no good mourning her loss now. He needed to move. Slowly, with pained and limping steps from his landing, he began to trek into the thick snowy pine forests that seemed to stretch forever... He forced himself not to look back out of fear that if he did, he'd never leave, and end up frozen in the snow waiting for hope that wasn't coming.

The next days would be tough on the starving and weakened dragon. If he had both wings, he could have managed to cover far more ground than he did, but as it was, he was fortunate enough to scavenge handfuls of winter berries and root vegetables to not starve, and take the pelt from a deer that had been killed by wolves messily with his claws to use as a makeshift blanket. The cold had fortunately frozen the meat enough that it no longer reeked of rotting flesh.

It was on his third day of pushing through the icy woods that he saw his first signs of civilization, and cautiously made his way towards them. There was no way of telling if the small stone and thatch house was occupied, but after observing it for some time, he concluded that it wasn't. The wooden fence around the building creaked loudly as he pushed it open, before it simply snapped and fell from the hinges, causing him to dive down and hide for several long, tense moments until the crack of snapping wood had stopped echoing through the hills.

When nothing came of it, he made his way quickly inside, not wanting to remain there longer than he had too. Inside, he found the home abandoned, a thin layer of dust on everything indicating it had been for some time, possibly even since the beginnings of the war. In the small, curtained off bedroom he found a few pairs of poorly fitting boots, along with a thick hide coat and pants to cover himself with. The clothes were a size or two too large, but he didn't care, fastening the pants with the rope that held the curtain up as a belt. A few cans left in the pantry yielded frozen expired vegetables and soups, which he chipped at with a butter knife into manageable chunks of ice. It wasn't much, but it filled his stomach more than it had been in months.

When he set out the next day, he was a sight better prepared, and around midday, he found long furrows of churned mud in the snow, indicating that tracked vehicles had passed by here not long ago. He followed them against their direction of travel, backtracking their path until he found a road and followed that instead, still having little idea of his direction save that it was vaguely north-bound.

The first village he came across was abandoned, signs of a heated battle and bombed out buildings with little but rubble left being all that had remained. A pile of ashes and still smoking black shapes was gathered in the center of town, and he deliberately avoided looking at it for too long, knowing exactly what had happened to its people after they had resisted. Such was war, but rarely had he seen it up so close and personal...

He moved on without stopping to even search. Only death remained here, and to linger in her presence was to invite her cold gaze upon you.

The snow began to thin the further he went from the ruined town, and before long, even the sky had begun to open up, letting a few warming rays of sunlight in from the thick layer of clouds above. Another day of travel and he might have even been able to get back to Nationalist lines if he didn't run into any more trouble...

The next village he entered seemed somewhat more lively, and a few of the people he saw stopped to watch as the poorly dressed and sickly looking dragon passed by, hushed whispers and closed shutters greeting him further in. It was only once he had reached the main street did he realize where he was. The first building on the corner answered that question, a run down looking tavern with a sign hanging above the doorway. The Vogue.

He pushed his way inside, the dimly lit room having only a few small, mismatched tables and chairs and a bar at the end. A liquor rack stood behind that against a mirrored glass wall, though the stains and cracks running across its surface told him that whomever had come through here last had made a show of wrecking the place.

"We're closed till next month, and we've got nothing to serve." Came a voice, and from behind the bar, a messy grey furred wolf bitch stood up, a rag in one paw, cold, yellow eyes regarding him cautiously. She kept her other paw hidden under the bar's counter, grabbing at something. "Ya' deaf or just stupid? We're closed." She snapped again, clear threat in her words.

"I was, uh..' He started, but she didn't even give him time to finish his sentence, pulling the sawn off shotgun from under the bar.

"Did ya' not hear me! Closed! Get out!"

"Wait! Golden crowns adorn the fool?" He said cautiously, watching the wolf for any signs she was about to fire. Her expression dropped, and so did the weapon in her paws.

"Oh christ... Why didn't you say so first?" She quickly disappeared behind the bar again, and Laurence heard the sound of a floor safe being opened hastily, a few quiet curses coming from the female as she span the wheel lock. She emerged a moment later, holding out a small piece of plastic in her paw. "Here, take it and go. It's not safe here."

Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a small memory drive, the kind you could get at any small computer store. "What.."

"I don't know. She just said to hold it until someone came to get it with that challenge phrase." She insistently thrust the device at him, and he took it with a hint of reluctance. "All I know is she said it was important. Vital even, that Nationalist command knew about this before anyone else found it." She stepped back, before motioning to the door. "There's a car in a shed about two blocks north of here. Should be fueled, and the keys are above the visor. Just be careful. Federation troops came through last night looking for someone by her description."

That just left Laurence with even more questions, but he held his tongue, turning the thumb drive over in his paw. How could something so small be of such importance? What could matter so much that Sasha would have sacrificed herself on the chance that he would survive to deliver it? And just why would she have wanted the Nationalist's to get this before the Fed-

It hit him like a coin dropping, and he looked at the bartender with a look of realization on his features. "She was a double agent, wasn't she?"

The lupine only shrugged in response.

"I cannot say." But the knowing smile on her face told him all he needed to know, and thanking her quickly, he left to find the transport that had been left. Whatever was so important on this device had to get back to command ASAP. As he stepped out onto the street, the clouds parted, and for just a moment, Laurence could see the sun clearly through the large breach in the grey sky. The rays shone down on him, warming him through quickly, and somehow, he knew Sasha would be watching over him.

Epilogue:

Laurence stepped out of the black tinted car three months after the war had finally ended in an armistice signed by all three factions. He never had found out what was on the small drive he had delivered to the officer manning a roadside Nationalist checkpoint he had finally stopped at. It was "Well above even my classification level", or so the officer had told him. Whatever it had been through, it's effect had been clear, as a new offensive aimed at some hidden objective had all but forced the Rebels and Federation troops into a corner, and the ceasefire had been called soon after.

The small grassy field was dotted with grey cross markers, and he stopped for a moment, letting the shiney new augmetic wing that had replaced his lost one stretch out with the quiet hissing of pneumatics and gears, the thick, leathery sheet of pseudo-skin pulling taut between them, mimicking his flesh and blood wing on his right. He had received all kinds of letters of thanks, even been put down for commendation by several high ranking officers he had never met before for his invaluable and decisive actions aiding the war effort. Hell, they'd even offered to give him his own squadron, if he so wanted it.

He'd declined it all, of course, settling instead for a nice house on the edge of his home town in the foothills of the eastern ranges where he had grown up, and a new augmetic wing so once again he could take to the skies on his own. That first new flight had been an exhilarating and joyous moment, even if his landing had left something to be desired. It would take some time to get used to the changes, the doctors had insisted, but he was expected to make a full recovery.

Walking through the lines of headstones, he felt a familiar pang of loss in his chest, making his way through the rows to the one he knew he would find. It was off in a small corner by itself, beneath the leaves of a low hanging willow, a small photograph set into the center of the stone. She looked so proud, wearing her dress uniform, smiling for the camera of her officers graduation shot. Her orange fur had seemed to glow beautifully.

The inscription on the stone simply read; "Here lies Sasha Sartova. Daughter, Sister, Friend. FIO 3rd Class, Nationalist Armed Forces, whose accomplishments brought the first steps of a lasting peace and freedom to our great nation. May she rest in peace."

He smiled at that small justice. It had been the one request he had asked of all those high ranking men who were eager to meet him. Find her and bring her home. They had made good on that promise to him. With a smile, he knelt down, before sitting on the grass beside the stone, laying a small bouquet of flowers against its base.

"So, I went for another flight today. The wing is still a little stiff, but..." He began talking, not another care in the world on his mind.