FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Lena hefts her backpack filled with art supplies over her shoulders with her folding stool attached to it. She needs to hurry to secure her spot on the square tonight before someone else grabs it. Crossing Main Street she can see her spot for the night when she hears the horses attached to the carriage putting up a racket. She turns in time to see one of the horses rearing up about to clobber a, dragon? She didn't have time to think, she begins talking to the horse in a calming voice that animals always seem to respond to, the horse put its front hooves safely back on the road and the dragon is now about ten feet away on the sidewalk.

She turns to look and her spot is taken by some kid with a speaker as he regales passersby with his wit before breaking out in song. "Damn it!" She turns to the dragon, she had to give the guy props on the details of his suit as it was quite realistic. "Look what you made me do? Now I have to find a less lucrative spot to draw my caricatures for the night, thank you very much!"

The dragon’s jaw drops open. "You can see me?" He had been amazed when he heard the woman speaking to the horse and it listened as he hadn't seen anything like that in this world.

"Of course I can see you, I'm not blind!" What an idiot.

"That isn't possible no one can see me not here anyway. I've been stuck in this damn realm for over fifty years and in all that time, to my knowledge, not a single human has ever seen me."

She is amazed at the suits ability to change its facial features. "Look buddy, did you hit your head or did the horse kick you and I just didn't see it? Is there someone I can call?" Her night is ruined already she may as well help this guy get back to wherever he had escaped from. She waves at the mounted police down the block that is looking her way. She is starting to notice people making a wide berth around her and she cannot help but take a whiff of herself but does not smell anything bad.

The mounted cop rides up on his horse, which is side stepping and snorting. "What's the problem, miss?" He is trying to get his horse to calm down as he talks to her.

"This guy," she points to the guy in the dragon suit. "He seems to be confused. I don't know if the horse from the carriage accidently kicked him or if he escaped from Bellevue or something. Could you help him out?"

The cop looks around her and back to her. "Miss, there's no one there, do you need some help?"

"He can't see me weren't you listening? No one can see me but you and the animals of course as that horse is quite irritated at being so close to me." The dragon walks in front of a woman and she would have run into him if he had not stepped to the side suddenly. He even waves his paw in front of her face and she doesn't even twitch.

Lena looks back at the cop. "Um... I'm sorry I bothered you." And she walks into the square determined to find another spot where she can sell her caricatures for the rest of the night. She will not make as much as she would have but anything is better than nothing.

"Hey, wait... come back!" The dragon follows behind her.

Why is she seeing things now? She has not seen things since she was a little girl. When her father left she saw all manner of hallucinations; ghosts and scary looking things she did not even want to think about but this? Maybe she should go to the clinic. She could use a bit of her savings and maybe they could give her something that would make it stop.

The dragon grabs her arm. That is new. None of her other halluciantions as a child could touch her. She looks up into his face. He is dark blue, almost black and he looks like he is about seven feet tall but she is only guessing. She is only five feet, four inches so he towers over her.

"Do you think we can sit down somewhere and talk?" The dragon says as she looks at his paw with his finger like digits wrapped around her arm and he lets it go. "You have to understand, I haven't been able to talk with anyone in so long. Besides, you saved me back there. I normally don't walk so close to the horses because I spook them but I was distracted by a strange woman with purple hair walking by."

Lena takes a long slow breath. He cannot be real but he touched her arm. The horses did seem to be startled by his presence. She walks over and starts setting up her easel and paints. Is she losing it?

The dragon sits down next to her on the grass. "What are you doing?" He asks her.

"I'm setting up to draw caricatures for people. It's one of the ways I make money." She cannot believe she is talking to him, it, the dragon. He cannot possibly really be there as no one else can see him so she must be having some kind of psychotic break or something. Maybe she should go to the hospital. She shakes her head.

"Look, can you stop talking to me and go away? I need to get to work and if people see me talking to something that isn't there it's going to scare them away. You already cost me a crap ton of money and I really need whatever I can make tonight."

He sits there for a minute not saying a word until he says, "The thing is, you can do what you need to do and I'll just talk while you listen. Nod your head once, slowly, if that's alright. Most humans don't notice small movements. It's amazing humans can communicate at all for everything they miss." He notices her slight nod. "Good. About fifty years ago, I stumbled through a rock I was leaning against and ended up here in your realm only there wasn't a rock or anything else where I came out at for me to find my way back. I don't know what or why the doorway was there on my side but without a door on this side I’m stuck. It was here in this square, actually, before most of this was here. It was just a park back then with a few buildings nearby." He heaves a long sigh. "So how did you do that with the horse? Oh yeah, you can't talk." He looks at her and she is drawing a picture of him. "Wow, you're really good."

"Thanks." She said under her breath. As she was finishing it a man walks by and is fascinated by her drawing.

"How much for the dragon?" She chuckles, thinking she wishes he could take the dragon and go.

"Twenty dollars."

The man pulls out a twenty and gives it to her. She pulls out a plastic sheet protector, slips the artwork in and gives it to him. She begins drawing another of the dragon. If this keeps up she just might make as much as she would have in her regular spot.

This time she draws one of the horse rearing back about to trample the dragon. Sure enough another man walking by sees it and buys it from her when it is done.

The dragon continues to watch her. "I usually sleep in the square after everyone goes home for the night. I can't seem to go far for long even though I know I've been over this place a thousand times and can't find the doorway back." He looks up at her. "Hey, can you see anything different? I mean the way you spoke to that horse maybe you can see something I can't. Maybe that's why you can see me."

She looks up and around then gives a slight shake to her head.

"Oh well, it was worth a shot." He talks her ear off all night as she sells several more dragons and draws quite a few caricatures before it is time to head out. She packs up, puts on her backpack, and heads toward home, or what she calls home anyway. He starts following her and she realizes there is not anything she can do to stop him.

"Isn't there somewhere else you'd rather be? Maybe out hunting your dinner… Oh God! You don't eat people do you?"

He laughs and is surprised as he cannot remember the last time he laughed. "No, I hunt in the woods outside of town; plenty of things to eat there without eating humans. Besides, contrary to popular belief, they aren't that tasty."

Her eyebrows shoot up and her mouth drops.

"It was a joke! Are you always so serious?"

She ignores him. There had not been much to laugh at in her life.

She gets to her building, a boarded up six story they were going to tear down in a few weeks, and slips in through the loose boards. There is not room for him to slip through so he flies up until he finds a broken window without boards nailed to it. He carefully climbs over the broken glass and lands on the floor with a loud thud. He keeps his wings curled tightly to his back and lifts his tail up behind him. He did not want to accidentally tear his wings or cut his tail on some of the debris lying around. He goes through one of the doors and finds a stairwell. He can hear her climbing up the stairs so he waits.

"And I thought I got lucky and you buggered off." Her mouth twists to the side.

"Why are you here in this awful place?" He twitches his nose on the end of his muzzle."

"I live here, it's too cold for me to live on the square and it isn't safe for someone like me to be there after everyone's gone home. So I live here, at least until I have enough to get a better place. They're going to tear this building down in a couple of weeks so I’ll be finding someplace else soon."

"Where's your family, friends?"

She scowls at him. "That's none of your business. You know, I can't help you and you don't owe me anything for saving you. I made enough on your dragon sketches tonight to make up for you losing my favorite spot let’s just call it even."

"But... you're the only one that can see me." He sounds pathetic even to his own ears. He owes her regardless of what she says. He will find a way to pay her back for saving him.

"Nope, we aren't 'even' as you say and I'll be sticking around."

"Great, whatever." She throws her hands in the air and then heads up the stairs.

"How much further?" He didn't like his paws touching the things littering the floor."

"All the way to the top."

"You know, I could have flown you up there and we wouldn’t have to be on these awful stairs." His tail hits the banister and a slight growl rumbles through his chest.

She looks back and sees the distaste on his face and laughs.

"I told you, you could go and no way am I riding on your back. You don't even look big enough to carry me. You sure are small for a dragon; you're not that much taller than me."

"How do you know how big dragons are supposed to be if you've never seen one before?" He steps over a step that has broken glass spread over it.

"We have stories of dragons and most of them are much, much bigger than you."

"Where I come from we have all different shapes and sizes. I'm rather in the middle. Oh, and you wouldn't have ridden on my back. I would have carried you."

Her eyebrows shoot up. "Not on your life!"

"Well I'd rather not give up my life for it but it would have been easy to carry you to the roof; you aren't very heavy looking." He thought she was rather small actually as most humans seemed larger than her. "Do you get enough to eat? You seem kind of puny for a human. Most humans I see would make two or three of you."

"Most humans eat too much and my size is just fine thank you very much! Here we are." She comes out on the top landing and opens the door which surprises him since he had yet to see a door on any of the other landings.

She sees how he is looking at the door. "I put the door up myself so I could lock it at night while I'm sleeping. I'd never get any sleep otherwise. During the day I don't really care, I don't have anything anyone would want and most won't climb all the way to the top floor."

She obviously cares about her environment; the floor is swept, there are blankets and pillows laid out nicely and an old table with various sundries for eating.

"I don't have much to eat but I could give you some tuna and crackers."

He wrinkles his muzzle. "Thanks but I already ate today and I won't hunt again until tomorrow."

She locks the door. “I've boarded up the broken windows up here to keep the night wind out, but I can let you out the door and you can go up one flight of stairs to the roof to fly on out of here when you're ready." She looks expectantly at him.

"Oh I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying with you till morning and then I'll head out for breakfast. What do you do during the day?" He stretches his wings out and then curls them tight to his back again.

"I have a day job, a couple of them actually. Tomorrow is Friday and I'm working at the pizza place from noon until about 8 p.m. I'll head over to the square to try and get some caricatures in before the place clears out but people tend to hang around later on Fridays."

"Where's the pizza place?"

"It's down a few blocks but not far. Thankfully I found all of my jobs within ten blocks of the square."

"How many jobs do you have?" He cannot believe how busy this woman is.

"Over the weekend I usually find someone that needs help with set up and take down at the farmers market on the square. I draw caricatures between open and close and after. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays I work answering phones at a Vet's office, that one is the farthest away, and on Wednesdays I work at the movie theater, mostly so I can watch the movies for free, a woman has to have some entertainment."

She smiles and he is surprised at how much it lights up her face. Not that he did not think she was attractive, for a human she is. She has reddish brown hair that he has not really seen on many humans and it is quite nice. She has a few freckles across her nose and cheeks that for some reason he finds adorable. She is a bit on the thin side but he figures with the way she is living, she most likely does not eat well. If he can do something about that she would probably have some nice curves.

"Why do you live here again?"

She rolls her eyes. "You don't give up easily do you?" My dad died when I was about five, he went off to fight in the army and never came back. Mom, well she did the best she could but ended up marrying a creep." She focuses on her tuna and crackers she is eating. "He ended up getting my mom hooked on drugs, and as soon as he had her passed out for the night he would visit my room." She hears a deep growl and jumps.

Gruffly he says, "Sorry, I could sense that he was doing bad things to you in your room, and it made me angry. Is he still living? I'd like to rectify that."

She swallows hard. "No, he and mom were in a car accident when I was sixteen and rather than go into foster care, I've been on the streets taking care of myself. At first I did just the caricatures because who's going to hire a sixteen year old without their birth certificate or their mother to sign for permission. But, after awhile I got to know some of the regulars on the square and the owner at the pizza place gave me my first job. He's cool, he doesn't hassle me as long as I do the job and I'm on time." He is watching her and she shrugs her shoulders. "Now I'm nineteen and legal so it doesn't matter. I finally opened a bank account and I've been putting every penny into it saving to get a place. I nearly have enough, probably within the month I can move in to one of the lower income apartment buildings; they aren't great but they are much better than this place. Plus I'd finally have electricity and running water. My boss at the pizza place has already said he would co-sign for me otherwise no one would rent to me.”

He is amazed he has not seen her, or rather her him, long before now. Of course she looks like she mostly keeps her head down and focuses on her art while on the square. All this time and she was right there.

"So what's your story? I know how you got here, but what was your life like on the other side wherever that is?"

He let out a long breath. "It is beautiful, green every where the eye can see, at least in the spring through the end of summer. There aren't a lot of towns like there are here and mostly they are called villages. We have a few castles but I stay away from those as there tends to be a resident wizard or sorceress and no good comes from hanging out with them. There is a dragon community that is slowly beginning to flourish again. We had some trouble with said wizard for over one hundred years, but the problems actually started before that, when our Dragon King..." It still felt funny to say that. "He fell in love with a Goddess and she got in trouble for getting pregnant and the other Gods banned her from seeing the King again. I guess it really broke his heart and he went insane. All kinds of trouble happened after that and basically, the tribes of dragons fell apart and we lived solitary lives, forgetting that we were once a tribal culture. Thanks to Trillia and Drey, things changed. Trillia brought together all of the shifter maidens..."

"Wait, the what?"

"Shifter maidens, the wizard had cursed the dragons because the sorceress, daughter of the Goddess and the Dragon King, only wanted to be with dragons and not him. So he cursed them so that we couldn't have any female hatchlings and dragons would eventually die out. The sorceress had been mating with dragons and when she got pregnant, she turned the female children over to the villages to raise. Trillia was one of those. Anyway, Trillia became Drey's mate, our new Dragon king, of course he wasn't King then but he became King and she is now his Queen.

"Wow, sounds like a soap opera only with dragons, wizards, sorceresses, Gods and Goddesses. "

He didn't know what a soap opera was but there certainly was a lot of drama before Drey and Trillia worked everything out.

"So do you have a mate back in your world?" She is focusing on her food.

"No, I hadn't found my shifter maiden yet. There are plenty of them now as Trillia sends out the shifters to the villages and asks for a list of the names of the babies that were left but none that triggered a response out of me.

“Triggered a response?”

The Dragon steps from hind paw to hind paw. “Uh, well, it is said when we see our mate and she becomes heated at seeing us, we can scent her arousal and… well we begin to show our arousal.”

She glances down and the barest of flesh is poking out of his sheath. “Hold on, put that away.”

He looks down and turns around thinking about hunting, the lady with the purple hair, the horse that almost kicked him until it is safely put away. “Sorry about that…” He says as he turns back around. “I guess thinking about my potential mate began to trigger a response. Anyway, there’s no more guess work and maidens dying."

"Excuse me? Maidens dying?"

"Oh, um, in our world if a human mates with a dragon they die. It seems there is something in our seed that is toxic to them."

"So uh, dragons do it with humans?"

He grins, seeing her cheeks flame up. "Well, not humans, only shifters now. For a long time the dragons would ask the villages to sacrifice a female once a year to find their mate. Problem was that it would kill them as we didn't know how to find the shifters until Trillia came along and figured it out.

"She sounds like someone I'd like to meet."

"That's unlikely considering I can't find my way back."

"So you've been stuck here this whole time and haven't been able to talk to anyone but me. I don't understand why I can see you and no one else can. I'm still not sure you aren't a hallucination."

He reaches over and taps his talon on her bare arm. "Yes I know, I can feel you but as I used to see things that weren't there as a child, how do I know you aren't some extension of that and maybe I have some chemical imbalance in my brain or something."

"I know I'm real, how do you know what you saw as a child wasn't real?"

"Because everyone told me it wasn't real."

"Just because they couldn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't real."

"They eventually stopped showing up, whatever they were, and I was glad of it. Some of it was darn scary; crazy haired, heads of women, ghost looking people, and other scary things."

"Well, you can see me and I'm real. I wonder if there is anything else you can do? Wait, how did you talk to the horse and calm him down?"

"Oh, that's no big deal, animals like me."

"What you did is a big deal; I've never seen anyone talk to animals the way you talked to that horse and have it respond."

"Well it isn't anything special, I talk to them and they like it, that's all."

"Anything else you can do?"

"Like what?"

: Can you hear my thoughts? :

"Holy hell! How'd you do that?"

"You could hear me?"

"Yes, damn it, what the hell?"

"Have you ever been able to hear other's thoughts?"

"Not that I know of but there were times my spidy sense would go off and I'd stay away from whatever creep triggered it."

"Spidy sense?"

She laughs, "It's from a movie and television show which I imagine you've never seen before."

"No, I haven't though I have heard people talking about movies and watching them on a big screen. I've heard there is a, 'Drive-in Movie' at the next town over but I never felt inclined to check it out."

"Oh man, I'd love to go with you one night just to see what you think of it." She was smiling again and warmth spread through him.

"When is your next night off?"

"Technically, I don't have a night off because I always work on the square at night."

"You never take time for yourself?"

"I don't have time. I figure someday when things are better I can take time for myself."

"Well how about this Saturday night I'll take you to the Drive-in and we can watch whatever is playing."

Her mouth pulls to the side and her brow furrows. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to take just one night. Alright, I'll go with you. Wait, does that mean I'm going to have to fly with you? No, I can take the bus. I don't need to be carried by you way up in the air where you could drop me to my death. No thanks."

"I wouldn't drop you; you are the only living soul I can talk to."

"Living? What, can you talk to the dead?"

He chuckles, "No it was just an expression."

"I'm tired and need to get some sleep. You're welcome to stay or I can let you out."

"I told you I'm staying."

"Fine." She goes over to her blankets and lies down. He moves over to a corner of the room and carefully curls up, facing her. She flips this way and that until she growls, "Oh get over here I can't stand you sleeping on the floor without something to lie on." She pulls her covers around her and moves to the far side.

He very carefully lies down on her blankets and looks at her back. He turns to face away from her and curls up. He grins as he knows he is growing on her.

"My name's Lena..." She quietly says from the other side of the blankets. "Do you have a name or am I just supposed to call you dragon?"

He chuckles, "No, you can call me Dantalian."

She rolls his name around in her head thinking about the fact there is a dragon in her bed and she feels something stir deep inside, but refuses to acknowledge it. Both fall asleep faster than either would have ever thought possible.