FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It was well into morning before Cha'kaar heard a startled yelp and the familiar thump of someone landing on the floor. Without looking up, he added a little more detail to the diagram he'd been working on. "Slept well, you two?"

Darrius gathered the sheets up around him, blushing hotly and glaring at a stunned Niles, who was picking himself off the floor. "You pervert!" The vulpine pointed a shaking finger at the bird. "Cha'kaar! What is he doing in my bed?" Niles cuffed the boy around the ear. "Oh shut up, child! Nothing happened, you can be sure of that!" He huffed and brushed down his silk robe, grumbling. "Your mentor just laid me beside you when I fell asleep up here is all... and it's my bed!" Darrius growled. "Hey! You gave it to us for the night, so it's ours!" The petty bickering was merely background noise at this point. Admittedly a background noise with an increasing number of vulgar terms and an increase in volume that was interrupting his concentration. The lupine set his quill down, and slammed a fist against the table. The room shook slightly and dust fell from the rafters, cutting off their petty squabble mid way. The plucked the quill back up and continued to finish the D in a delicately curved script. "Quiet." He muttered.

They both remained quiet and shared awkward glances until Ryan appeared in the doorway, a mild frown on his face. "Whats all the noise, guys? You're scaring off the birds..." Just as the vulpine and bird were about to shush him, Cha'kaar waved his hand. "It's okay, they'll be quiet for now, you go find a nice quiet spot to listen to the birdsong. And maybe find a cloth for afterwards..."

With the bat delt with, and his work complete, the lupine gathered up his scrawls and pictures into two bundles, and turned to face the two, pushing the pages into their unresisting hands. Niles blinked and flicked through a few pages, all while Darrius slowly raised his arm. "Erm... Cha'kaar, hon?"

"Yes?"

"Why does Ryan need a cloth to listen to the birdsong?"

The lupine fixed his lover with a look. "Ryan's now a member of the bat clan, and they find certain sounds very emotive and beautiful." Cha'kaar, as this point, cleared his throat. "That, and he was making a log cabin in his trousers from the birdsong. Hope thats cleared up." The fox slowly lowered his hand, blushing a touch. "Yes sir..."

Niles looked up quizzically from the first few pages of his bundle. "Dan'Kir, what am I looking at here?" The wolf leant against the table, and fished in a pouch of his loincloth on the back of the chair, removing a pipe and a small wad of tobacco. He spent some time filling the end of the pipe, before igniting the shredded leaves with a small snap of his fingers. Niles clicked his beak irritably and drumed his digits on his knee before the mutt spoke, smoke issuing from his maw with every word.

"This, is our common foe." Niles thrust the picture in the mans face, muttering under his breath in barely controlled anger. "I'm sorry? Are you saying that the creature that attacked us, the very thing that used a man's soul to bind itself to our plain of existance, that tore apart my churchyard and desicrated the graves of your students... is a sodding ball?"

Cha'kaar leaned back a little from the picture thrust into his face and swiveled his pipe to avoid getting ash all over his smooth lines and penmanship. And such fine work to! The simple looking orb in the center of the page was surrounded by the hinted glow and flicker of arcane energies from a few subtle quill strokes, and even contained a small snippet of information on the item in question.

"Close. It's a Sundered Pearl." Niles tore the paper from his eyes and clicked his beak irritably, before dropping into the vacated seat at the desk. "Alright then, Alec Sein, why don't you tell me how one got into one of my partners and turned him into some kind of sadistic murderer? Because I'm pretty sure it doesn't mention in your notes how such a thing can happen." The bird crossed his arms and fixed the wolf with a glare.

The lupine finished off his pipe and upturned it, tapping out the ash on the side of the table lightly. "If you gentlemen were to read the information packet, you'd know, but to sum up how it most likely happened, I'll tell you a story..."

~***~

The Barrier. A wall between worlds. As thick as the mightiest tree, as thin as a sheet and as close as a shadow. On one side lay the world as we know it, the green of the grass and the leaves, the blue of the water and the sky... And the other, the barren wastes, known by many names, but most commonly as the plain of magic.

In this realm, nothing grows, and nothing lives, and yet the landscape is alive, and the rocks seethe with energy, and no living man has ever set eyes on this place of living crystal and toxic air. Seas of crystal, mountains of clear rock all made from the crystaline form of settled magic. It is said, when too much gathers, the build up is enough to open the tiniest portal into our world for just a moment, but enough for just a sliver of this raw energy to slip through, to form a Sundered Pearl.

No one knows why, or quite how, but magic is alive, and has always been. Even the most foolhardy of mages knows this, when their spells have backfired to rend their body to shreads for their lack of respect. But Sundered Pearls are different, the physical, crystaline form of magic, they live. Some guess they were a single entity who's voice was lost in the deafening tide of many speaking in unison, and now it has gained solidarity in a world not meant for it.

The pearl senses it is alone and in danger, forcing magic into the surroundings, to rend the rock asunder, to bend it around itself and to form the most basic of mobile shells. Usually an upright bipedal form, but some have been known to use a quadruped form.

They keep to themselves, run from any sentient being and stay hidden, wishing no harm on anyone.

~***~

"Thats all very well, Alec, but that Sundered was not kind, and nor was it shy... Why, it was very keen to show me it's talons..." Niles rubbed his shoulder a little. He could still feel a twinge whenever he moved it wrong. Cha'kaar rolled his eyes and sat beside Darrius, who nuzzled into the wolfs warm fur, slightly lost in all the conversation floating between the two.

"I'm telling you what most of them do. But one was different, and Sirus was most likely not the first one." The vulpine perked an ear at that and sat up.

"You mean their's a stronger one?!" He pulled his fox back under his arm and stroked his muzzle gently to calm him.

"Possibly, and this is just guesswork, but I'll bet that an original Sundered attacked Sirus and pulled a second pearl through the Barrier and inserted it into Sirus to see what would happen. Needless to say, we've seen the outcome... A being that feeds off energy and has a limited use of magic, not to mention the difficulty with tackling more of them..." The wolfs voice dropped, his vulpine giving him a squeeze around his middle.

Niles crossed his legs and clicked his beak quietly at the sad scene in front of him. He placed his hand on Cha'kaar's, speaking in a whisper. "What happened in the marshes last night? What did you see?"

He leaned forward, holding his head in his hands as he spoke. "... Sirus... he has them, he has my students..." The lupine heard the intake of air from Niles and the boys grip grew tighter.

"Oh... goddess... Even Sierra...?"

"She was the one who broke away, told me to turn back before Sirus... Before he made her hurt me..." Another hiss of indrawn air. Lowering his hands, he could see Niles was visibly shaken at the news. Cha'kaar pulled himself from his lovers grasp and stood in the doorway, sighing. "Look, just... read the packets I gave you, get dressed and meet me down by the altar. I need to be alone right now, okay? I'll be fine."

~***~

Sirus had taken his new prize to his own little corner of the moving tower, a curtained off area set aside just for him to store his trinkets and to partake in his new pastime. Namely, collecting odd bits of junk and to fantasize. The small room consisted of a well worn bed, a bookcase and table and chair, even a fireplace. The ferret had learnt soon enough that lighting the fire was a bad idea underground, the smoke had made his eyes water, but at least he smelt of some kind of pine for a while, rather than the musty body odor that these creatures produced seemingly limitlessly and at will. It was only recently that he learnt of hygene, having gone through all of those mundane memories that seemed so fasinating to him, the rituals of brushing fur, washing and scenting oneself with desirable perfumes had been a learning method in of itself.

The previous owner of his body did have staff, but he'd seen what they did and had never put two and two together. Sirus, however, had done so. It had taken some time to drag a discarded tin bath out of the swamps, much less stealing the necessary items from the township without drawing attention to himself. The entire process took several hours of going backwards and forwards, and even longer to set up a small corner as the bathing area, but at last, it was ready for use.

The tin bath stood empty. A simple and rather out of place looking pipe led from the celing, bunged up with a brown cloth that dripped fowl smelling fluids onto the tin. Sirus gripped the fowl wad and wrentched it free. Scummy water poured into the tin bath until the wad was jammed back into the pipe. The smell of stagnent water even caused the snow leopard to wrinkle his nose despite his blank expression. The ferret dipped his finger into the water and funneled some of his energy into the scum, the water slowly changing colour. However, a twinge of pain shot through his head, causing him to curse and shake his head, calling over his new toy. He jerked his thumb to the water. "Clean it, heat it..."

A slight nod and the cat slipped his fingers into the water, the scum pushed to the edges and fading as the water turned crystal clear and began to steam. He withdrew his hand and remained blank for a moment before placing his hands on Sirus' cheeks, startling him. "What're you-" A surge of magical energy flooded his mind and pushed back the pain. A quick glance at his chest saw the blue veins sinking back in under the skin. His body was wearing out faster than he thought, or he just wasn't maintaining the way he should have been. For the first time, Sirus felt flustered.

"What's your name, kitten?" He opened his mouth to speak, stopped, and thought about it, his brain slowly starting to kick in. "It's... Errol, master." The ferret felt a small tingle run down his back at that word. He'd called him master. He mumbled a little. "... Just get undressed and climb in the tub... And hang your clothes up somewhere..." His voice trailed off as the snow leopard, in a simple fluid movement, undid his habbot's belt, slipped it from his shoulders and tossed it onto a broken pillar, sliding into the tub. Despite his dirt-streaked muzzle and body, he was a sight to behold, a fair build and powerful, but an essence of speed wrapped around him like a cloak.

Sirus shook his head clear and grumbled, turning his back to give him some privacy. What the hell was that just now? That feeling. It was... unusual, almost exciting, even. The silence made him groan inwardly. "Clean yourself, now..." Splashing commenced as the cat began to wash the stink out of his fur and the dirt out of his hair. He'd have to order Errol to use common sense or something, he couldn't keep controlling him in such a binding way all the time. It would make simple tasks awkward and the more difficult ones impossible.

The ferret snatched a reasonably clean and dry cloth from the detritus in his collection and tossed it at the soaking wet cat, landing over his head. "Use that to dry yourself off, child. No- no... get out of the bath first, and dry yourself off second..." After a lot of fidgiting and kerfuffle, Sirus tied the soaked cloth around the cats waist to keep him modest. His eyes were drawn up to that blank expression, and that faded blue patch in his hair.

With a small sigh, he gripped the tuft of hair and ran it through his fingertips, dying it a dark blue, a small smile on his lips. "You daft kitten..." Slightly curious as to the boys reaction, he clapped his hands together in front of Errol's face, recieving only a slow blink in return.

"Yeah... Lets see if I can get you to be more responsive."

~***~

Sirus pushed his jaw back into place with a loud snap, picking himself off the floor. Why did they always go for the jaw?

He'd given the order of free will but had never stated any restrictions to it, resulting in charred fur, his precious baubles scattered and crushed underfoot and his jaw dislocated once again. Honestly, why was it always the bloody jaw they went for? He examined himself, running his hands over the burn marks and charred flesh, watching it knit itself back together, the fur soon sprouting back.

"Okay... I order you to have free will once more but-!" He yelled, jumping back a little as he saw the muscles tense slightly before waiting for more orders. "... You cannot hit me or hurt me physically, and that goes for my master also." He scratched his chin, thinking of anything else to add to it. "... And no screaming the place down either."

Errol sighed and grimmaced at the rules he was given, fixing the ferret with a death-like stare. "You realise I'll kill you the moment I get the chance, right?" Sirus rolled his eyes, the traits of the living sinking in with each passing hour.

"Yeah, I got that when you set me on fire, broke my jaw and scattered my shinies..." He motioned to the room at large. "By the way, you're picking them up and cleaning up your mess." The snow leopard gritted his teeth as his body jerked into action against his will, snatching up the tidbits across the floor and setting them with some care back onto the shelf, mumbling darkly all the while.

Sirus sat on his rough bed, watching the cat finish his duties before taking a seat beside him, a slight growl in his throat. The ferret sighed and laid his hand on the boys shoulder. "Whats wrong with y-" The boys elbow smashed into his nose with a satisfying crunch and spurt of blood. Errol fixed the ferret with a sickly sweet grin as he dripped blood all over himself. "Sorry, I twitched."

He glowered at the cat, healing his nose, the cartilige snapping back into the place, the blood slowed and stopped. This whole feeling pain thing was beginning to drag and become more bothersome by the minute. Why did they need to feel it in the first place?

"I order you not to hit me or my master either on accident or on purpose." The cat met this by showing him his middle finger. The ferret tilted his head to the side a little as he watched it. "Err, whatever... Just tell me why you're upset." Errol fixed him with another steely glare.

"You mean you don't know?" Sirus threw up his shoulders.

"Do I look like I know, you fool? All I know is you attacked me when I gave you some independance." The leopard gritted his teeth.

"You dragged my soul from the afterlife and forced me back into this sodding body and now I'm forced to do the bidding of the man who dragged me out of my own ploughing grave, you tell me why I'm upset." He spat. Sirus merely shrugged.

"I didn't know you mortals got so upset when things like that happened." Sirus peeled away the skin around the entrance wound of his heart, showing the blue pearl lodged in his chest at the cat's confused look. "If I'd have known you people valued your souls so much, I might have left this poor man's soul intact somewhere..." He felt a slight pang of something unusual in his chest as he healed the skin back over his chest. He double checked the wound in case he'd put it back wrong. "Huh, odd. And whats wrong with you now?" Errol's face twisted into horror at his admitted crime against nature.

"You toyed with that man's soul?" A mere whisper, but the infusion of disbelief was all the ferret needed to feel another pang in his chest, but worse this time. He tested his chest again and shrugged, finding nothing wrong with the fur. "No, I didn't toy with it, I tore it into pieces and cast it into the marshes. He put up a struggle when I was given this body by my master." A final pang made him thump his chest. "I think I put the skin back wrong, I keep feeling this weird kind of pain in my chest..." Errol made to slap the ferret across the back of the head, but only managed to swipe his ear, the orders still in effect.

"Thats guilt, you fool. You feel guilty for what you did to him, you sod... And if I were allowed to shout, I'd have screamed at you for that..." Errol cracked his knuckles, a slight growl at the back of his throat as he stood up. "I'm going for a walk..." And with that, he left before Sirus could bark more orders at him.

~***~

Errol breathed deep, pulling the slightly muggy air into his lungs as he left that foul place. The horrors those creatures commited seemed to poison the air around them, he swore he could taste the bitterness hanging in the air and was glad to be away, if only for a short while. A few moments of minor calculation hinted that he couldn't go a half mile from his 'master' and only be without him for a half hour. He blinked a few times, gritting his teeth and shaking his head. Those damned rules! Would he ever be rid of such annoyances? Even away from that sodding ferret, he was controlling his free will!

A whisper on the wind caught his attention, distracting him from his building fury, coming from behind him. The cat glanced up the hill, a tiny ring of trees, and once again, that tiny whisper. Intrigued, he made his way up the hillside, careful not to step in any puddles or mud, another side-effect rule of Sirus' dominance possibly. The scene was not a pretty one. The caked on gore of the hilltop had not yet been washed away, nor had it been expertly cleaned by Cha'kaar all those days ago. As grim as the sight and smell was, this was not the reason he'd come up here. A faint tickle of some spoken language made his ear twitch, drawing his attention to a slight glow near the knotted root of a tree.

Errol squatted down by the root, seeing little to nothing, aside from the strange glow, and that voice on the wind that made his ears twitch. He squinted, and that glow became a little more solid, a little cloudier. The cat stretched out his hand, and felt the slight fog twitch out of the way of his fingers. Perplexed, he teased it towards him, and cupped it in his hands, gazing at this strange oddity. The whispers grew in intensity the longer he stared at it, he gazed deeper, determined to know what it was that was calling him.

A flash of images and garbled voices shot past his eyes and ears as his breath met the strange thing before him. Perplexed, he breathed again, but slower. The din was less garbled and the images clearer. Again he tried with the deepest and slowest breath he could muster.

The image of a female ermine, fur as white as the freshly fallen snow flickered past his eyes, a snippet of music and even some muted conversation. It was all he needed to hear the others calling out through the marshes, carried off on the wind. They called to the bundle in his hand, and it called out to them. The nearest one had blown into a log, and upon touching the form in his hands, it joined, growing it brightness and size, yet more muted conversation, mutterings of servants and ineptitude of said servants... each orb of mist and light added to the one in his hand, becoming a mish-mash of random thoughts, sounds and words.

Errol knew what he was collecting, what he was saving from lord knows what in the marshes.

The shattered remains of Sirus Rogen's soul.

~***~

Sirus rocked back and forth on his rickedy bed, tears rolling down his eyes, guilt burning deep within his being like red hot coals in the pit of his stomach, every terrible deed replayed across his minds eye. A soul torn asunder and scattered, graves robbed... The anger of that sodding preacher and the pain he'd wrought on him. The image of him gleefully impailing the birds shoulder; it all sent waves of that burning guilt, plaguing his every moment of existance, as if his body had just caught up and couldn't quite believe what he'd made it do. He'd gone against it's very nature, the belief hammered into it since it learned to walk upright. And in a few short hours, he'd trampled across every life lesson that had been ingrained within it.

Sirus made as if to scratch out the images from his skull, raking those claws through his flesh, determined to be rid of such atrocities, those razor-sharp talons piercing the thin bone, energy arching from the tips to seek out those thoughts, to shatter them and rend them into dust. Each surge of energy caused convulsions as cells sparked and bridges burned, severing the memories from anything and everything, the waves of energy working deep into his brain, removing the very cause of those emotions in his body. A final shudder and it was done, as if pushing through a pane of glass, it hurt terribly, but beyond was freedom unrealised. Freedom from empathy, freedom from conscience...

Freedom from guilt itself...

The damage was done, the bone and flesh knitted itself back together as something dark and terrible swam through his being, through his newfound freedom, something cruel and unrealized. Sirus opened his eyes, any spark of mercy or humanity gone. He pressed two digits against his throat and let out a dry whisper that carried upon the unseen winds, calling to his new toy, Errol.

~***~

The young snow leopard had taken a moment from his search to construct a necklace of sorts. A piece of half-corroded string, expertly tied around a pebble which he kept in his free hand on his search. A faint sheen across the pebble hinted at where those 'shinies' he'd been picking up had been stored. Every piece of that shimmering light had been coaxed from it's hiding place and introduced to the necklace, which had begun to give off a dull glow. It was only when the final piece was introduced that he heard that whisper calling him back. He shuddered as it slid through his mind and pulled on his levers, commanding him to obey. He grumbled darkly, ears folding back as he slid the necklace on and broke into a trot back to the tower, unaware of what plans his new master had in store for him.

It took less than ten minutes to return to the tower, Errol pushing aside the cloth that acted as the doorway, making sure his necklace was tucked away and out of sight.

"You called, master?" He could sense something was wrong even before he stepped into the room. The atmosphere, damp and humid, had disappeared to be replaced with a bitter cold that hung in the air, the presence in his pendant shirked, turning it's glow and faint warmth in on itself, as if scared out of it's wits, his fingers darted to it, fondling it through his shirt as he approached the still, slumped over figure on the bed slowly, unable to help himself. "...Master?"

Their was a slow sigh from the hunched figure that grew in intensity the longer he stared until Sirus flickered and stood right in front of him, a vice-like grip around his throat. Steely cold eyes glared at him, boreing straight into his very depths. The grip tightened, cutting off the boys air. He gasped, clentching the wrist that held him, unable to shift that hand an inch, unable to breathe. The ferret reached out with his free hand to brush aside a few strands of hair as he whispered. "You are very pretty." He sighed softly. "However... you would never let me take you willingly..." Errol's vision began to blur around the edges and his head swam, screaming and begging for air that would not come. A hideous grin spread across his masters muzzle. "... Perhaps it'd be more fun if you struggle..." The claws on his free hand shifted into talons which brushed slowly under his right eye, the young mans gaze fixed upon those instruments of pain as they were dragged up his muzzle, leaving the faintest tingle to linger for a moment before the fur gained a slight crimson sheen as the skin split, coating his muzzle in the sticky life essence.

"Now... Let us see how far we can push you..."