FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This story is self-contained and can be read alone. (2,404 words) Rating: Clean, with a dose of anatomical and societal worldbuilding

Terminology: A drake is a male dragon, a drakka is a female dragon, and drakken is the collective term for the species. The human equivalents would be man, woman, and humans. Drak is a gender neutral honorific, the combined equivalent to sir or ma'am.

When Eron walked up to the meeting room, he was stopped by a drake with scales of snowy white who was guarding the door. "I have an appointment and the secretary sent me here. My name's Eron Taslin," Eron explained.

The sentry nodded. "Just wait one moment please--I'll see if the wingleaders are ready for you." He turned around and slipped into the room quietly, shutting the door behind him.

Eron was left waiting outside in the corridor all alone. He took this time to make sure all his scales were neatly smoothed down and that his flight harness was properly fitted. Appearance was always important, especially for matters involving major drakken clans.

At this point, however, he realized that he wasn't quite as alone as previously assumed. Other than the grey-scaled sentry who had been guarding the meeting room, there was also a hatchling standing on one of the seating cushions that lined the corridor.

The hatchling had bright orange scales, mottled on her side with pale white spots, and Eron guessed that the young dragon was a few years old. Not quite a fledgling yet, but no longer so fresh out of the shell. Eron assumed that she was a child of one of the Mintaka wingleaders, waiting for her parent to finish their meeting.

The hatchling was swaying from left to right, waving her wings around and shuffling all four of her paws in smooth patterns--she was dancing, Eron realized. She was dancing to a tune which she was humming to herself, moving her body with a rhythmic grace.

"Hello!" chirped the hatchling, raising a wing and waving it at him. She followed this up with a polite bow of her head, which she somehow managed to work into a dance move, enthusiastically bobbing her neck up and down in sinusoidal patterns.

Eron stared for a moment, then he bowed back. "Hello to you too. Why are you dancing?"

"Cause it's fun!" replied the hatchling. "You can dance too, if you want," she offered.

Out of the list of skills that Eron could claim to be proficient in, dancing was not included. His talents were more related to logistics, project management, and system integration. "No thanks. I'm not a good dancer like you, and I don't think I have time to dance right now."

"Oh, there's always time to dance! Slowly spinning around, and round, round; oh, oh, oh!" sang the hatchling, cheerfully mixing lyrics into the melody she was humming. With one final flourish of her wings, she did a full somersaulting backflip, finishing her dance. She flopped belly down on her seating cushion, folding her legs under her. "I'm Jarzyl. Who are you supposed to be?" she asked, staring up at Eron with wide eyes that were filled with curiosity.

"My name's Eron Taslin. Please to meet you, Jarzyl," said the drake, introducing himself to the hatchling. From the flight harness he was wearing, Eron took out a sheaf of papers which detailed the latest interclan budgets, technical schematics, and overall project margins. He glanced down and flipped through the latest information he'd gotten from his clan's constructors, but right at that moment the door opened again and the sentry returned.

"Apologies for the delay, but the meeting is still ongoing. Please take a seat and the wingleaders will call you in when they're ready."

Eron nodded his head politely, and went to sit down on one of the seating cushions placed in the corridor. He sat down on his haunches and started looking over his paperwork, mentally running through his presentation one last time.

Jarzyl bounded from cushion to cushion, carefully avoiding touching the floor until she was sitting on the cushion next to Eron. She leaned over and reared up on her hindlimbs to peer at his paperwork. "What's that you're looking at? Can I see?"

"Jarzyl, don't bother drak Taslin," said the sentry.

"But I'm booored! Kalven, if you won't let me bother you, then I have to bother someone..." grumbled the hatchling.

Eron grinned and shook his head at the sentry. "No, it's alright. I don't mind her." He let Jarzyl take a look at some of the flow charts and data tables that were inked onto his paperwork. "These are just some statistics and plans. I'm about to have a meeting with the Mintaka wingleaders, and I have all sorts of important things I need to tell them."

"Hey, I'm from Mintaka! You can tell your important things to me, instead of the wingleaders," Jarzyl suggested. She raised her neck frill and tried to look authoritative, which made Eron chuckle in amusement. Jarzyl's honest enthusiasm was incredibly disarming.

"I don't think you'd be very interested in my presentation. I'm from a different clan that is working together with your clan, you see, so I'm here to talk about a proposed construction project. You'd probably find it all rather boring."

"You're right, that does sound very boring!" agreed Jarzyl cheerfully. The hatchling took a moment to use her hindleg to scratch at an itch on her side, and then she continued with her questions. "What are you supposed to be constructing?"

"A new part of the city--sector 49. A light industrial estate coupled with a propulsion module. My clan is supplying the propulsion systems, while your clan is working on the structural foundation and the primary loadbearing frames."

"Uh...! So... so what are all these things? Are those buildings?" asked Jarzyl, pointing towards a page that was filled with diagrams.

Eron shook his head. He slipped the page out of his binder and passed it to Jarzyl for her to see. "No, those aren't buildings. Superstructure is added last, and this whole project might take years or even decades to complete. It'll depend on the final plan decided by both our clans."

"So this new part of the city won't be ready for years?!" gasped Jarzyl, sounding astonished. For her, a decade was more time that she had ever known in her whole life. "That's forever!"

"Long timelines are to be expected for projects of this complexity," Eron explained. "However, we are trying something new to cut down the construction time. You see, these diagrams you are looking at are the routing schematics for the power conduits that will connect propulsion to the city's central power grid. The conventional approach is to only install the conduit lines after most of the construction is already done, but now we're attempting to integrate propulsion lines directly into the architectural planning so we can do both at once. That's my job--systems integration and optimization. Of course, the issue is managing complexity so this reduces build time and cost, rather than increasing it."

"Uh huh. Uh huh. Ok! I have no idea what you just said," replied the hatchling. She placed Eron's schematic flat on the ground and bent her head to peer closely at it. "Why are the words so small? I can't... How do you even see all those small words?" She squinted her eyes and stared closely at the paperwork.

"I'll use a magnifier and projector so that everyone can see the papers anyway, so I don't think the print size is that important," Eron explained.

Jarzyl was still peering over at his documents, but now she shook her head and blinked her eyes confusedly. "Hey! Something's in my eyes..." she murmured.

Before Eron could ask what she meant, the sentry at the door stood up and gestured to him. "Drak Taslin, the wingleaders are ready for you now."

"Alright, I'll be right in," Eron replied. He reached for his schematic, but then he saw that Jarzyl seemed to be having some difficulty. The hatchling had a dazed look and she kept blinking her eyes repeatedly. "Hey there. Are you alright?" Eron asked

"I can't see! My eyes are...? I can't see anything..." she murmured, looking confused.

"Calm down. Is there dirt in your eyes or--?"

"It's all blurry? I'm blind! Why am I blind?!" squeaked the hatchling. She stood up and tried to run, but ended up crashing right into the Eron's side. "Ah! I'm going blind! Help!"

"Don't panic!" Eron tried to tell her. At this distance, he could see what was wrong with her eyes. "It's just your farsight. Reset your lenses and you'll be fine."

"What's going on?" demanded the sentry, who had run up to investigate the commotion.

"Her farsight--only half her lenses are down," Eron explained. He turned to the hatchling and tried to help her out. "What was your name...Jarzyl? Jarzyl, listen--you need to relax." but Jarzyl wasn't listening. She was rubbing at her eyes with her paws and let out panicked chirps.

"Eep! I'm blind! I'm blind. No, no, no..."

"You're not blind. You're not blind!" Eron repeated. The problem with Jarzyl's eyes was straightforward. Dragons naturally possessed telescopic lenses in their eyes to enhance their long-distance vision; this capability, known as farsight, relied on a lens element that flipped into position inside the eye, but there was also a lens that had to be slid down in _front_of the eye to cover it like a transparent second eyelid.

As a hatchling discovering this instinct for the first time, Jarzyl had only managed the first half of this reflex--she had instinctually tried to enhance her sight, but she wasn't using both lenses properly. Instead of having her vision magnified, her sight had gone blurry and indistinct.

"Calm down. You have to relax and try to look at something far away. It an instinct--it should feel like another eyelid covering your eye." Eron tried pointing out the window and towards far off clouds, but he wasn't sure if Jarzyl was paying attention to him.

Suddenly the hatchling went completely still, a considerable shift from her previous energetics. Her pupils went wide and oddly distorted, and she glanced around with an astonished expression. "Oh. Oh! Now I can see again. And everything is so close. Whoa!! Kalven, you still look grumpy from both close and far away!" Then she turned to stare at Eron and blinked again, and her eyes reset to normal. "Oh I can just turn on and off like that? This is so weird! I love it! How do I...uh..."

Eron nodded, glad that Jarzyl's vision had returned. "You'll get used to it. Now I need that schematic you are standing on, and I have a meeting to get to."

Jarzyl glanced down and realized that she was stepping on the document that Eron had let her see. "Oops. Sorry..."

Before Eron could pick up the paper, the meeting room door swung open and an older drake stuck his head out. Eron immediately recognized the drake--he was North Mintaka, the prime wingleader of Mintaka clan and one of the most important drakken in the city. Not the sort of person who liked to be kept waiting.

North fixed Eron with his piercing gaze and frowned. "Eron, we're waiting for you in--"

"Grandpa!" chirped Jarzyl. She sprinted over towards the older drake and tried to hug him. She was barely a fifth of his size, so her outstretched wings only barely made it around one of his forelegs. "Grandpa I tried to look at the papers but all the words were small and then my eyes got weird and I couldn't see for a while but now I can look at things far away and then they get closer!" she exclaimed, saying everything in single hurried breath.

Jarzyl got an affectionate lick on the neck from the senior wingleader. "That's called farsight, my dear. It's good to know your eyes are working normally. That's just another small part of growing up, like losing your baby teeth or learning how to fly. And I hope you don't learn to fly too soon, or you will be an absolute nuisance to handle. Now just be patient and sit down; the meeting's almost over. Your father and I will be out soon."

"I'm bored! Can I come in and watch? I promise I'll be quiet!"

"Alright, but only if you are very quiet. Remember--you promised. This is a serious meeting." That said, North glanced back up and his friendly expression instantly reverted to a stern glare that made Eron feel like he was a hatchling as well. "Eron, has my granddaughter been bothering you?" he demanded.

"Not at all. She's been a bit curious, but aren't all hatchlings?"

North nodded once. "Damn right. Now let's begin that presentation of yours; this city isn't going to build itself." His glare was authority and influence, projected at long-range and perfected into an art form, although the effect was marginally lessened when Jarzyl scampered up onto his back and perched on his shoulder. The hatchling scowled up her brow and tried to imitate her grandfather's stern expression, but she looked far too adorable for it to work properly.

"I... yes of course," Eron said.

The prime wingleader strolled back into the meeting room with Jarzyl still perched on his shoulder. Eron followed him into the room, where all the other Mintaka wingleaders were gathered. Most of them looked serious and stern, but no one commented on the hatchling perched on North's shoulder. Jarzyl looked thrilled to be in the presence of her clan's wingleaders--she grinned and raised her neck frill, but true to her word she remained silent.

Eron took a deep breath and prepared to begin his presentation. "Good morning everyone," he began by saying. "I'm Eron, Taslin wingleader under architectural systems integration. I'm also the lead project liaison for the sector 49 joint venture between my clan and Mintaka."

Eron slid the first document of his presentation under the magnifier, and an enlarged image was projected on the wall behind him. But when he glanced behind to check the image, he discovered that a tiny dirty pawprint was now marring the margin of the paper. "Oh that's... It seems like some of these plans have come preapproved with a stamp of approval. Just ignore that."

Still perched on her grandfather's shoulder, Jarzyl opened her wings and waved at Eron cheerfully. And despite the seriousness of this whole endeavour, Eron smiled back at her. Then he noticed North's stern glare, and he hurriedly returned to his presentation. "Alright, so this is the latest update on our advanced planning for..."

END