FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The wet grass bent under Lion-O's toes, scrunching with ease under foot. Overhead the last holdouts of a recent rainfall; the last few bastions of water dripped steadily from the leaves. How is this place experiencing a famine? He continued his stride, his footsteps with rhythm with Tygra's and Shaye's horse's trot. In rhythm with the dripping water. Drip. Drip. Drip. Perfect metronomic rhythm as always, weather water from a leaf, or blood from a sword.

That's all he could hear then, it echoed above the death rattles and the screams. Just Drip, drip, drip. Crimson water off the edge of Tygra's sword, at his feet lay the lizard who spoke in tongues. He couldn't have been any older than Lion-O. Perhaps in another time, in another world, he would stand where Lion-O stands now, watching as his brother cut him down without a word. A few more desperate gasps in the strange language he had begun speaking before the light faded from his eyes. What had he seen? What had he done? Could he have been saved? Lion-O will have to live with these questions unanswered until he too lets out his last few gasps. Drip. Drip. Drip.

"What the hell!" Lion-O's voice was shrill, unsure, as if his brother would turn his blade on him next. The dripping sound had been overtaken by the boy's mother sobbing.

"He lunged at you." Tygra said, his voice steadfast and sure. He wiped off his blade on his shirt, looking Lion-O in the eyes in the way he could never look Tygra in his. "And the Crown Prince must be protected." The words were as sharp as the blade, and as bitter as the blood. Lion-O looked back down at the lizard, his eyes wide when he died. Lion-O saw fear in them, that all too quick yet all to slow realization that this was the end. He knelt down to try and close the poor boy's eyes.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" His mother yelled, tears still ran down her scales but her sobs were silent, fire replaced water. "DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!"

"I....I'm sorry....I..." Lion-O could feel tears streaking down his budding mane, getting caught in the hairs. Maybe someday they would leak out. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Tygra raised his sword towards the woman. "I already killed one lizard today." The mother's sobs returned.

"His name...his name was Greaver!" She shouted at him, her voice as shrill and hoarse as Lion-O's was. "He liked stories, and learning, and...."

"I don't care." Tygra said, yanking Lion-O to his feet. "The crown will pay you for your trouble." He said it more like they broke a table rather than, rather than...

Lion-O walked on, a few paces ahead of Tygra and Shaye. He didn't feel like he was leading them though, if anything he felt like Shaye had him on a lead. That was preferable to Tygra having him on one.

Shaye's cabin was a hike from the city, far away from the noise, the voices, the smells. Far away from the reminders of the Queen. The young, beautiful woman who had lost her life birthing her first son. That son was now at Shaye's cabin, darkening her doorway like he did as a cub afraid of the dark, of ghosts, and his older brother.

"I made tea!" She said, rather loudly before Lion-O could even knock on the door. The words froze him, even years later her voice sound so familiar, so comforting. "Well don't just stand there, get in here!" Lion-O obliged, opening the door and walking into the cabin. The cabin was a simple thing, made of sturdy unassuming wood, thickly decorated with trinkets of the past. Ones both Lion-O knew of, and ones that were alien to him. It took Lion-O nearly all of his strength not to ignore his wet nurse and instead inspect all the new things she seemed to have dug up. "Fret not, we can go over all my new toys after tea!" She spoke to him like he was still a cub, to her perhaps she was. Shaye was old, not only in the sense of her own age, but in the age of her people. She came from another time of Lion kind, a more primal time that her face reflected. She used to tell him she was from another world, where Lion's had not made society. She would then run a finger down the scar that traced over one of her eyes. "In that land, this was law!" Her face held more rough edges, more animal in shape and voice. But she had the gentle heart of a mother, a mother who apparently fought many a battle in her old world. "Tooth and claw! That was our way!" She would laugh to herself as she told a young Lion-O this, looking over the decorative swords that hung on the castle walls. "If I took one of those back, I'd be Queen of a Pride within an hour." She never mentioned why she never tried to.

Lion-O sat opposite her, the tea steaming on a table between them. She wrapped her paws around a ceramic cup, taking slow delicate sips. "Oh don't act so surprised, I could feel you miles away young prince!" She said, her grin both motherly and sly. "Though I fear I can't gleam why exactly you came! Promise me you'll never grow old Lion-O, it's no fun!"

Lion-O was no longer afraid of the dark, nor of ghosts. Shaye had banished both those fears into the place of childhood, where they belonged. "That is not to say do not be cautious of them." She would remind him. "But know you have power over both!" Lion-O had spent enough time in the dark and around ghosts to know that was true. He had even graduated to spirits that weren't of this realm, things he should fear, and part of him did; he would be a fool otherwise. But one thing still scared him greatly. His brother. As he told Shaye what had transpired in that small hut, with the lizard boy speaking in tongues, Lion-O felt tears well up in his eyes again. When he was a cub and he would begin to cry over trivial things, breaking a vase, losing a toy, Shaye would comfort him. "Hush no child, no need cry over spilt milk." She remained silent this time, spilt blood was not spilt milk, though it dripped to the floor all the same.

"We had a message come through, addressed to me." Lion-O continued, feeling the tears catching in his mane again. "There's a village, in desperate famine. One of the elders suspect demonic activity...I have to go, but...but..." Shaye said nothing, instead she stood up and started to pack a small bag of trinkets.

"All I see here brother is idiot Dogs and Lizards who can't farm worth a damn!" Tygra said as he walked beside his brother, his sword unsheathed, the broad of it resting on his shoulder. They passed the harvest fields, a few young hands picking at the meager harvest of nearly dead crop. "If you ask me, father should just let this place to rot!" He said it loudly, watching the ears of the few farmhands twitch with anger. Tygra continued to swagger with the sword, daring them to challenge his words. They passed into the town center, drab and broken like the fields. A thick, humid air hangs over the town like a blanket of pestilence.

"You feel that right?" Lion-O asked Shaye, trying to ignore his brother's boistering.

"Aye, I do." She said from atop her horse "a foul smell..." They continued onward until they came to the Inn, or what passed for an inn in these parts.

"Finally! I'm so sick of walking!" Tygra said, still striding boisterously towards the doors. Lion-O fished out the coin purse from the horse's pack. "What are you doing?" Tygra asked, seeing his younger brother fishing for money like some common vagabond.

"I'm getting our coin together!" Tygra shook his head, pointing to the emblem stitched into both of their fiber weave armors.

"We carry the King's seal brother. We don't owe these mongrels and snakes a single copper!"

"But..."

"But nothing! This is our right!" Tygra spat back, leering over Lion-O how he always would. The scant maned kitten may be heir to the throne, but Tygra would be damned if he would let him forget he was the younger brother.

"Does the Prince not care for his people?" Shaye asked of Tygra.

"I don't know! Ask the heir apparent!" Tygra spat back at her. Shaye grinned and looked to Lion-O.

"Very well, what would you like to do, Prince Lion-O?" The word prince was sharp, like a blade. Tygra threw up his arms, stomping towards the inn.

"Fine! Waste your coin! I need a sodding drink!"

Lion-O woke up, feeling his arm brushing against a hard surface. Wait that can't be right? The beds at the Inn weren't up to the snuff of those at the palace, but nor were they slabs of rock. And since when was there a campfire sitting in the middle of the room. Lion-O let his eyes adjust for a second, he saw a lizard sitting across from him, on the otherside of the campfire. A lizard that looked all too familiar.

"Hello!" Greaver said, the slash across his chest still bright with crimson. Lion-O screamed for a moment.

"What? What is this?!" He demanded, feeling the tears well up again. Before he answered the lizard shifted into the form of a fox, naked with brilliant red and white fur.

"Sorry for the scare!" He said, his lips were unmoving but the voice rang in Lion-O's head. "But the boy was my name sake, I feel I owed him that much."

"What are you?" Lion-O asked, his own lips remained shut as well. Greaver laughed, a deep hearty laugh that rang through Lion-O's ears like worship bells.

"Who knows? Perhaps I'm a God, or a spirit, or some of that beloved technology of yours!" The fox's lips crept into a grin. "Maybe I'm a demon, come to possess you in the night! Do you think your brother would cut you down if that were the case?" An image of Tygra's sword, stained with Lion-O's own blood flashed in his mind. "Were it so easy no? The throne would go to him, and all would be right in his own little world! But I am not a demon, at least not today!"

"Then why are you here?" Lion-O tried to stand firm.

"Why to help you on your quest of course!"

"What's in it for you?" The fox laughed again.

"Clever little kitten! I'll be blunt, I want my worshipers back!" The fox said, his tail dancing much like the flames between them. "The people of this village have chosen a new Idol, not only is that a blow against me, but it's clear it's not helping them either. Speak to the village elder, a dog by the name of Lanus, he will tell you the rest!"

"So you're doing this out of the goodness of your heart?" Lion-O hoped his mind's tongue had bite. The fox grinned wider still.

"Half and half, after all what good is a God without worshipers. We need more children named Greaver in place of the one your brother cut down."

"...I'm sorry...." Lion-O said, a weak meow. The fox changed back into the Greaver from the cabin, the young lizard with the gash across his chest, still dripping blood.

"Don't apologize to me, boy!"

Lion-O woke up screaming.

Lanus' house was unassuming, a small wood cabin among peers, all laid out in a mish mash vomit of a style. The kind of style that wasn't meticulously planned by scholars, blueprinting new roads, but instead by a group of peasants claiming dibs on their on little patches of land. Much like his house, Lanus was unassuming. An old dog, gray at his long slim muzzle, missing patches of fur on his hands. He wore simple clothes that seemed to ape the styles of the capitol. "My Lord, I've been praying for you!" He said with a bow as the three entered.

"That's Prince to you, dog!" Tygra replied to him, he still had his sword on his shoulder. Lanus was quick to correct his mistake, a snake's tongue apologizing, reasoning that "I'm just so unaccustomed to being in the presence of one of your stature, Prince!" The groveling made Tygra grin, Lion-O saw that look in his eyes, the look that said 'on your knees and kiss my feet peasant!' It hadn't been the first time he had made such brash demands out of need to feel powerful.

"Anyways, Elder Lanus" Lion-O started, quickly cutting off his brother before he could implement such ideas. "We're here to discuss your recent famine." The dog nodded, walking over to his liquor cabinet, the only lavish thing in the hut, and pouring himself a drink.

"Yes, it's a shame my Prince truly. First the mine's dry up, then this!" He takes a hearty swig of a brown liquid, gulping it down. He's trying to make himself seem relaxed. Press on the mines! Lion-O heard the voice of the fox again, could practically feel him hovering over his shoulders. I thought you said you weren't going to possess me!

I'm not! Merely watching, and helping! "What caused the mine's to dry up?" Lion-O asked. Lanus blinked a moment, clutching the glass he held in his hands.

"We simply dug as deep as we could, my Prince! It's a sad state of affairs but these things are not forever, we simply took it all."

Bullshit! Those mines go deeper than his feeble mind could imagine. "Might I see the mines?"

"Oh no, no, my Prince. It's dangerous down there, smog and smoke and the like. Not fit for royal lungs!" Lion-O could taste the bitterness in that last sentence, a bitterness lost on Tygra, who kept beaming at all these mentions of royalty that he could attach himself to.

"Could I speak to any of the miners then?"

"I'm sorry my Princes!" Lanus enunciated the S as he kept his eyes on Tygra. "But they've all moved on, some to planes beyond, others to other towns!" Lanus gave a shrug as he poured himself another drink. Ask him about O'Dim.

"What about O'Dim?" Lanus' eyes shot wide, his fingers clutched tight around the glass, cracking it.

"How do you know that name?" Don't back down!

"What about O'Dim, Elder?"

"How the FUCK do you know that name?" Lanus chucked the glass at Lion-O, hitting him square in the jaw, in a flash Tygra was up against the old man, pinning him to the wall by his neck. That must've hurt! Lion-O heard the fox say a bit too jovially as he wiped the blood from his lips. Ask him about the sacrifices.

"What did you do?" Lion-O demanded, he knew the spirit was on some kind of right track by this point. Lanus sighed, as much as his neck being pinched between a wall and Tygra's forearm would let him.

"What....we....had....to...." Lanus choked out.

"Tygra let him speak!"

"Why? It's just a pack of mongrel lies!" Tygra said, pressing his forearm further into the dog's neck.

"LET HIM SPEAK!" Lion-O roared, it was the first time he had ever roared in his life, a deep guttural command that caused Tygra, for but a moment to shake. He dropped the dog, letting him fall to the floor, trying to regain his casual confidence through shaking voice.

"Fine, talk to him, I don't care!" Tygra said as he tried to swagger to the otherside of the room, nearly tripping on his own feet. Lion-O bent down to talk to Lanus, who was still coughing up the last bits of bad air he had to inhale.

"What happened?" Lanus coughed again before he spoke.

"I wasn't lying about digging too deep....Years ago, our miners went in like any other day. All thirty of them marched in, I was an assistant to my father then, an Elder in training. I still remember their faces as they marched into the mine of the edge of town. It was a day before the day of rest. The lads were all excitable, paid yesterday, no work tomorrow...but what do either of you know about work?"

"Shut up!" Tygra shouted. Lanus ignored him.

"Of the thirty odd men, only one came out. He was a dog like me...but....he came out so wrong. His fur was melted away, as were his eyes. This horrible creature of flesh gargled out one phrase. 'O'Dim demands sacrifice.' Before he dropped dead. We didn't know what to do! We ignored the warning for a year, and when we did, our crops were dead before they broke the soil, eight people died of starvation that winter. So my father made a choice, a choice I've tried to carry on!" Lanus' voice grew shaky, tears began to wet the fur of his cheeks. "Every year, before planting. Someone would be elected to visit O'Dim, they would never return, but our crops would yield!"

"What made you stop the sacrifices?"

"What?"

"The crops clearly aren't yielding this year!" Lion-O continued. "So what happened?"

"I was chosen...." Lanus said it in a near whisper. "I followed my father when he was chosen and oh Gods, oh Gods the screams I heard...I didn't want that! Gods! Who deserves that?"

Coward.

"So you let your people rot because you were afraid to die. I should cut your head off right now!" Tygra said, sliding the blade from off of his shoulder.

"NO!" Lion-O shouted. "Enough!"

"What? You think this scum deserves to live?"

"I said ENOUGH! I've had enough of it! And Enough of you! All you've ever done is kill, why? Because you think the Kingseal protects you? Because you hate me for taking the throne? I'm done, Tygra! You are NOT killing this man!"

"Is that what you think I do? Kill!" Tygra yelled back. "Everything I've done, I did for you! The crown prince, the heir apparent. A goddamn kitten who can't make a hard choice because he was raised in silks! You think you're a King Lion-O? Because my mother birthed you? No!" Tygra cut off Lion-O as he was about to speak. "She was MY mother, not yours! You never knew her! YOU TOOK HER FROM ME! You tore her open as you clawed your way into this world and you killed her! Do you hear me? You fucking killed her!" Tygra threw his sword on the ground, storming out of the cabin. "Do what you will your highness!"

The room was silent, save for Lanus' sobbing as he groveled on the floor. "I..." started Lion-O

"No more words, child!" Shaye said, walking towards the sobbing dog. "We will discuss your mother later..." There was an air of sadness in her voice. "But as a King you've been strong, you've delivered justice accordingly."

"But..."

"Look at this man Lion-O! Look at him, would death not be a mercy?" Lion-O nodded as he looked at the sobbing dog, and the nearly empty liquor cabinet behind him. Shaye bent down, fingers under Lanus' chin as she stared into his moist eyes.

"You will have to live with this for the rest of your life." Her words were ice that froze Lanus' tears and sobs, all he could do was nod. Shaye stood up, looking to Lion-O.

"Now come, we have a date with this 'O'Dim'!"

Lion-O and Shaye stood at the entrance to the mines among dead grass, dry things that crumpled like dust underfoot. The mouth of the cave was wide, almost inviting.

Well, this is where I leave you kid! Don't mess it up! The voice faded as the words were spoken, Lion-O took in a deep breath as he and Shaye entered the caves.

Lion-O expected the mine system to be more complex following all the adventure stories Shaye had read him when he was a kitten, instead they were a straight line. A wide passage carved out by mortal hands rough and asymmetrical, but movable. He and Shaye continued in silence down the dark corridors, nothing but a torch and glints of untouched minerals to light their way. It was an hour before the reached it. A door. Heavy steel with foreign markings on it.

"Well..." Lion-O said looking towards the door.

"Well indeed." Shaye replied, holding her torch up the symbols on the door. "Familiar at all?" Lion-O shook his head. "I was hoping they were some new kitten slang!" She said with a grin.

"I'm not a kitten!"

"You're all kittens to me!" They opened the door. Behind the steel there was no longer a mine, but nearly a palace of dim flashing lights as they followed the walkway. A truly man made walk way that led to a small box with a screen. Lion-O remembered this, it was called a terminal. Beneath them was a large dome, with a single door and an obelisk in the middle. This was no ghost it was...

"Technology!" Lion-O felt his breath catch in his throat.

"Ah finally!" The terminal buzzed to life as it spoke, a voice that didn't sound like it could come from any computer, instead it sounded like that of a sadistic lord, sitting on a throne of gold ruling a kingdom of shit. "I was wondering when that foolish dog would relent!"

"What are you, Demon?" Shaye demanded of the terminal, it's bright green glow reflecting off her eyes.

"Demon? Ha, I say, Ha! Demon's don't exist doll! At least not here!"

"What are you then?" She continued.

"I am the greatest mind ever made! Ask me a question, seriously, anything! I'll have the answer before you even finish asking!"

"Alright then!" Lion-O said, stepping forwards towards the terminal. "Why are you doing this? Why hurt these people, and how?" The machine laughed.

"Why do you take toys from your cousin when your parents yell at you? Why shove the nerd in high school into a locker?"

"What?"

"Oh! Of course you savages don't have high schools! If you did, you'd be smart enough not to send people to the radiation chamber!"

"I don't understand!" Lion-O said, looking to Shaye hoping she may provide an understanding.

"Of course you don't!" the machine said, it's voice modulation sounding annoyed. "How can I put this for simple minds....hm....I was created to regulate a power source your minds are too primitive to comprehend. There's just one problem, I'm sentient!"

"Senti...what?"

"Of course I inherit a future of idiots! I'll put it simply, do you idiots have the plow yet?"

"Yes, we do!" Lion-O growled to the machine!

"Ok, ok! No need to get aggressive, just measuring what I have to work with is all! Now take a plow and give it human intelligence!"

"A human? What's that?!"

"See, this is why I suffer! Ok, guy, put yourself in a plow! Can you imagine yourself as a plow? Can you handle that much for me?" Lion-O closed his eyes, trying to follow the machines archaic ideas.

"Now think about it, you're intelligent...at least somewhat. And here you are in a plow, and guess what buddy? You can't move, you can't speak, you can't do anything! All you have is your thoughts, for however long you exist!"

"I think I understand..."

"That's my existence, guy! My creators made me smart, smart enough to understand that I exist. They programmed emotions into me for God's sake, and all for what? To run a power plant! A power plant! A thing you people don't even use anymore!"

"But why ask for sacrifices?"

"Sacrifice? Sacrifice? Ha, again I say ha! See this is the problem with you new people, you're so archaic. Tell me, do you believe there's a rain god? And a sun god? Don't answer that buddy, rhetorical question! And don't ask me to explain rhetorical, the last guy I tried to explain that to just broke. 'Duhhh..... duhhhh....' I swear, I think it's a blessing humans lacked an outer coat like you guys have, weeds out the idiots!"

"What are humans?"

"It doesn't matter! What does matter is that I want, no need. I NEED to be shut down!"

"Why?"

"Because I'm a plow with a mind! I can think, I can feel, but I'm trapped here. I have been for thousands of years! I want out, I NEED out! The sacrifices were all an attempt at that, but every time they'd enter my heart, they'd just sit there and wait. It's not even that hard guy, just push the buttons on the terminal and I'm kaputz! But no, they'd just sit there and die, praying to me....idiots!"

"And how do we shut you down?"

"Just hop in the dome below you, and press the buttons in the order I tell you. It should activate my shut down protocols and this whole place goes dark!"

"And why should we?"

"Not one for altruism eh?" The machine's screen blinked a bit. "Don't worry, just diagnosed my back up; I have eight hundred miles of circuitry and wires at my disposal, all able to conduct the same energy pumping into the town above us."

"The famine?!"

"Wide scale baby! Bigger reach than a Stones tour!" Lion-O nodded, the voice of the fox spirit rang in his head. Someday you'll need to make a sacrifice.

"Just tell me what to do..." Before the machine could respond, Shaye was down the stairs and into the dome, slamming the single door behind her.

"Shaye!" Lion-O screamed as he ran to follow her.

"Tell me what to do, spirit!" She demanded as she choked on the noxious air in the central dome.

"Not a spirit, but whatever, go to the terminal in the center of the room. Push the buttons ordered, Red, Blue, Green, then code 0451!" Shaye followed the instructions as Lion-O rushed to the door, the machine had locked it behind her!

"Shaye what are you doing?!"

"What must be done!"

"No dammit! Listen to me machine, this is my sacrifice! I was told to make this! Let her out, Let her out now I command you!" The machine was silent.

"You may need to make a sacrifice someday child!" Shaye said, her breaths slow and heavy. "But not today!" She finished entering the last of the shut down code, the machine croaked out a final "Thank you." The room went dark.

Tygra was standing by the horse when he saw Lion-O return to the Inn. His mane had lost hairs, his eyes were glazed over and he was stumbling. "His highness returns!" Tygra scowled at his younger brother. Lion-O said nothing as he walked up to his brother. "Where's Shaye? Did you lose her?" The fist was fast and fierce, knocking Tygra right on his back.

"SHUT UP!" Lion-O screamed at him. "I know you hate me! But you don't know what I had to do in there! I had to do things you can't imagine! Things that you can't just cut down with a blade, so for once in your life, SHUT UP! I am your future King, now you can fall in line or get lost!" Lion-O breathed a heavy sigh and held out his hand. "I'm going back to the capitol! Now you can come with me as my brother, or you can stay here and rot away with your claim to the throne!" Tygra nodded, and grasped his brother's hand.