FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"You want us to what?" Nyx asked, genuinely confused.

"You heard me," Nobleman Pike, a large pot bellied boar, replied. "And I want it done within the day."

The bounty hunters Arc and Nyx turned to look at each other.

They stood in the office of the Nobleman's house, getting instructions on their latest bounty. It was a search and retrieve bounty, one the two of them had done on plenty of occasions, but the item requested was more than a little absurd.

Nobleman Pike had recently purchased an extremely rare bronze statue from some neighboring town about 50 miles away. It was being shipped by caravan but had somehow gotten attacked by a fairly large group of roadside bandits. The guards traveling with the caravan had done their best to defend the cargo, even managing to kill a few of the bandits and capture one alive, but they were overwhelmed and the statue was taken.

What made the statue so special, and why Nobleman Pike was so desperate to get it back, was that it moved. It was a statue somehow imbued magically so that if you got bored with its current position, you could have it move into another one.

The only one of its kind.

"I swear one of the other noble houses must've hired the bandits to take it." Nobleman Pike said. "There's no way simple bandits would know to take something so valuable, but the bandit that was captured hasn't given us anything so far."

"Vhere is bandit?" Arc asked. "The captured vone."

"I had the warden take him to the dungeons," Nobleman Pike said. "Since he wouldn't give me any information, he can rot away in a cell for all I care."

Nyx crossed her arms and started to drum her fingers against her bicep. "Alright, we'll question him first. But we need to discuss pay. Search and retrieve bounties can take a while depending on how easy it is to obtain the information needed. There's no way we can do it in 24 hours."

"You can, and you will." Pike demanded. "It won't take you long, especially once the two of you realize it's one of the other Nobles in this town like I suspect."

"And if not? Vhat if bandits just bandits?" Arc asked.

"We're the best bounty hunters in this town, which is why I'm assuming you asked for us first. Either you give us leeway, or you can get help from someone else." Nyx added.

The boar fumed for a bit, glaring at the two. After a while of aggravated thinking, he finally spoke. "Fine," he spat. "You will lose 15% of your pay for every day that it takes you to find my statue. That gives you a week before you don't get paid at all."

Nyx looked to Arc, raising an eyebrow. The albino fox nodded to her.

"We'll take the bounty." Nyx said. "But only if you drop it to 10% a day, so we have closer to a week and a half."

Arc could almost hear the sound of Nobleman Pikes teeth grinding into dust. She always let Nyx do most of the talking when it came to setting prices and working out agreements, but sometimes she feared that her spouse would take it too far.

Arc slowly walked up to Pike, looking into his eyes. She could see the fire raging behind his gaze, but she suspected it was less about them and more about losing his statue.

"Ve vould love to help. But ve vant to be sure ve're given time to get statue, yes?"

A bounty hunters contract required that the bounty hunter get paid through any means. If a bounty hunter wasn't getting some sort of pension, they were required by guild code to cancel the bounty and move on to another.

Nobleman Pike seemed to ease up a bit with Arcs gentle eyes on him and he relented. "Alright, but I'm not going any lower then that. If you can't find my statue in a week and a half, I'll find more competent bounty hunters to do the job."

////// ////// ////// ////// //////

With their bounty solidified and contract set, the couple headed off toward the only lead they had so far.

It was now late afternoon. A mid-summer breeze blew by, tousling their hair.

"Do you think bandit vill tell anything?" Arc inquired as they walked towards the dungeons near town hall.

"They usually never do. I can always break a few fingers if he won't talk."

"Nyx..."

"Right, I know." Nyx held up her hands apologetically. "Old habits die hard."

"Let me do talking." Arc suggested.

They neared the dungeons and the warden, a gruff grizzly bear, greeted them.

"He was brandishing a sword of higher quality than most bandits we nab." The warden said as he led them down a couple flights of cobblestone stairs. The air got noticeably colder and the humid smell of mildew filled the air when they reached the bottom. "And he also said he didn't know almost any of the bandits he worked with. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but if it is, then it would imply they were definitely hired for the job."

At the bottom of the stairs was a long hallway, lit by a few oil lanterns. Several guards in sleek tempered steel armor and brandishing pole-arms stood at attention in various parts of the hallway.

At the end of the hallway was a thick oak door, reinforced with steel beams and a heavy iron padlock. The warden nodded to one of the guards standing near the door, and the guard pulled out a large key, unlocking the padlock and opening the door. A rush of frigid air hit them and the smell of mildew and some other sour smell caused Arc to wrinkle her nose.

"You'll have to leave your weapons out here while you're inside." The warden said. "Some of the prisoners are expert pickpockets and will slit your throat with your own knife before you knew it was missing."

Arc complied, unbuckling her sword sheath as well as the knife on her right thigh and putting them in the hands of a waiting guard. Nyx was a bit hesitant.

"Nobody touches my scythe." She said as she pulled the leather sheath over her head and leaned her scythe carefully against the stone wall. The skull from her first bounty clattered lightly against the wall when she did. "If it's moved from this position when I get back, someone's losing their ability to walk for a week."

"Noted," the warden said, and motioned for the two bounty hunters to enter the dungeon. "The bandit you're looking for should be chained alone in the far left corner

Stepping past the door, and into the large and spacious dungeon, Arcs paw immediately landed in a small pool of water. Looking around, she saw that it was very damp almost everywhere. Water dropped from small cracks in the ceiling here and there and trickled down the several pillars that held the ceiling up.

There was less light in here than there was in the hallway. The dungeons were large enough to fit close to 100 prisoners and Arc only counted about 6 oil lanterns, their small flames desperately trying to push back the dark.

Lining the walls of the dungeon were a few cells for the more dangerous prisoners. Every other prisoner was locked in short rusted chains that clamped around their necks and were scattered across the floor, walls or connected to the pillars.

Multiple prisoners were shackled and spread throughout the dungeon, spaced far enough apart that they couldn't touch each other. When Arc and Nyx entered, many of them curiously turned to look toward them.

As they made their way across the dungeon, a prisoner sitting on the floor with a crazed look in their eye reached out to try and touch Nyx's tail. She stomped down on his hand without giving it so much as a glance, crushing it against the stone, and kept moving.

The prisoner yelped loudly, and pulled back, hunkering against the pillar he was chained to and rubbing his hand.

Arc put a hand on Nyx's shoulder, raising an eyebrow.

"Sorry," Nyx said.

They reached the back corner where a lone prisoner sat cross legged. He seemed to be some sort of hedgehog or porcupine, but his quills had been cut down to nubs, rendering them blunt and useless.

As they got closer, he looked up at them and chuckled to himself. "Bounty hunters, eh? That statue must be real important."

Arc kneeled down in a dry patch on the floor so she could see him eye to eye. "It is. Ve vould love to know vhat your companions did vith it."

"Ha! As if I know. I already told your guard buddies that I didn't know anyone there. Any one of them could've taken off with it."

"So you're saying you were hired." Nyx put in, squatting instead of kneeling so she wouldn't get her pants dirty.

"I didn't say that." The bandit said.

"Then all bandits happened to be at caravan at same time?" Arc asked.

The bandit shrugged. "Sure looks like it."

Nyx closed her eyes and started to pinch the bridge of her nose. Her left ear twitched, the one with her wedding earring in it. It was a little thing Nyx did when she was annoyed with someone. Arc sympathized with her, realizing quickly that getting anything out of him would be difficult and aggravating.

"Let's start over." Arc said, trying a different approach. "I am Arc."

The bandit cocked his head to the side slightly. "Jeremy."

Arc smiled sweetly. "Is pleasure, Jeremy." She scooted a bit closer to him. Taking both of his hands in hers. "You know ve are bounty hunters, yes? Meaning statue very important and dear to somevone. Anything you can say vill greatly help us."

Jeremy seemed to study her for a while. "If I help you, you have to tell the guards to let me out."

Arc mulled it over. "I can see vhat I can do." She promised.

Jeremy sighed, looking around the dungeon at the other prisoners who were watching. He motioned for Arc to come closer so he could whisper in her ear.

As she leaned in, he lashed out, spinning her around with one hand and wrapping the chain he was shackled to around her neck with the other, pulling tight.

Arc tried to gasp in surprise but the rusty chain around her neck made it sound more like a choked gurgle. Jeremy stood up, forcing Arc to do the same. Holding the chain tight with one hand, he reached behind in his shortened quills and pulled out one that was uncut. It was thick and sharp, and he hovered it over Arcs chest.

"Hey!" Nyx shouted, standing up and baring her sharpened teeth, tail lashing back and forth aggressively.

"You think a bounty hunter would be good blackmail material to get out of here?" Jeremy asked. "I guess we'll find out."

Arc sighed internally, since she didn't have the capacity to do so externally. She had hoped to have resolved this more peacefully.

It was over in an instant. Using some of the measly light from one of the nearby oil lanterns, Arc used her ability to reflect the light off her pointer finger, creating a beam of radiant energy that cut the tip off the end of the quill Jeremy was holding without him noticing.

When it clattered to the ground, and Jeremy was distracted for that split second, Arc grabbed the chain with both hands and ducked to the ground, pulling a surprised Jeremy along. As his head was suddenly wrenched down, Arc reached up and grabbed the iron collar around his neck, pulling him forward and flipping him over her shoulder.

He ended up on his back with a thump, dazed and confused. Nyx wasted no time placing a knee on his chest and pinning both his arms to the ground.

"We're doing things my way, now," Nyx said, smiling sadistically and digging her claws into his wrists. Jeremy cried out in pain, struggling to break free. Blood started to seep down onto the stone, a red stain against the grey dungeon floor.

"You like to steal, bandit?" Nyx asked. "Do you know how hard it is to steal without thumbs?"

Through gritted teeth, Jeremy looked up at her. "You wouldn't."

"She vould, sadly." Arc said. Standing next to Nyx and gently rubbing her neck while at the same time putting a hand on Nyx's shoulder and giving a light squeeze to let her spouse know she was okay.

To solidify her point, Nyx dug her claws ever deeper into his wrists.

Jeremy cried out again. "Alright, Alright!" He shouted. Nyx eased a little, but not by much. "I don't know who hired us, but I do know we had a drop point. We were supposed to take the statue to a group of wild blueberry bushes a mile away from the southeastern side of town."

Content, Nyx stood up, wiping the blood of her claws on his shirt as she did. She turned and started walking toward the dungeon exit.

Arc knelt down and unbuttoned a leather pouch she had on her waist, taking out two long clean strips of cloth and wrapping them tightly around Jeramy's wrists to help with his wounds.

"Very sorry," she said as she finished up and stood. "You have been very helpful, no? I thank you." With that she turned and hurried to catch up to Nyx.

////// ////// ////// ////// //////

It was late evening by the time the two of them found the blueberry bushes Jeremy had mentioned. A heavy wind had picked up, causing the forest to become a cacophony of noise as leaves rustled violently and tree branches shook.

What little light there was was being obscured by the trees themselves, making it very difficult to see.

Nyx was crouched on the ground near the bushes, gently running her fingers across the ground to feel for any indentations indicating prints.

Arc was carefully walking around the bushes with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths through her nose. While Nyx was a savant at tracking using physical markers, Arc preferred to use her acute sense of smell. Together, they could find pretty much anyone.

But the wind had blown away any lingering smells that may have been left behind.

"Nothing," Arc said after a few minutes of trying. She felt a little lightheaded.

Nyx cursed under her breath, shifting her scythe on her back since the strap had started to slip off her shoulder. "There are too many tracks around here." She said. "Animals come to the berry bushes often, so it's making the ground too uneven to feel anything..."

She drifted off, running her fingers back and forth across the same area. "I think I found where the bandits had placed the statue. Give me some light."

In a pouch next to her medicine one, Arc pulled out a small vial with dark glass. It glowed softly and when Arc bent down next to Nyx and uncorked the bottle, a small white glowing orb floated out.

A Will O' Wisp. They were common and easy to catch. Arc liked to keep a few vials handy in case she was in situations without light and needed to activate her Alchemical ability.

Now that it was out of the dark bottle, the Will O' Wisps natural light was enough to illuminate the area around them as brightly as a lantern.

With a sufficient source of light, Arc was able to see what Nyx had felt. The shape of a paw had been deeply imprinted into the soft forest floor.

"It's definitely the statue." Nyx said. "It's a wolf statue, apparently, based on the paw pad and claw structure. But nothing else could've left an imprint this deep unless it was heavy."

Looking around, Arc noticed a second imprint a foot or so away. And a foot away from that one was another. She pointed it out to Nyx.

"Statue must've been made to valk." Arc suggested. "Ve can follow to location."

"Let's get to it, then." Nyx said, standing up.

Arc cupped the Will O' Wisp gently in her hands. She used her Alchemical ability to reflect the Wisps light off her palms, amplifying the glow so her cupped hands shined brightly. It gave them enough light to see the tracks head through the forest and off in the direction of the town.

"Huh," Nyx said as they followed them. "Maybe Pike was right, as much as I hate to admit it."

The tracks led the two straight toward a large house at the edge of the town. Three stories with expertly carved designs in the doors and a thick wood fence surrounding the property, all dead giveaways that it was a Nobleman's house.

Arc paused as they neared it, a little surprised. This was the house of Nobleman Freud. Known for his sharp mind and kind heart, Nobleman Freud had donated a large portion of his wealth to building an orphanage right next to his house.

Because of this, he didn't have as much money as the other Noblemen. They all considered him to be a lesser Nobleman, but most of the residents thought the exact opposite.

But Arc wondered what someone like Nobleman Freud would want with a moving statue.

It was now dark enough that stars were starting to dot the sky. Nyx's black and grey colored fur basically hid her in the dark, but Arc's white coat made her stick out even at this hour. Nyx would have to be the one to scout around the house to see if she could spot anything.

"I'll be back," Nyx said before using her Alchemical ability to dissipate into a cloud of black smoke.

Arc leaned against the fence and waited patiently, putting the Will O' Wisp back in its vial as she did.

Light shone through some of the windows of the house, and Arc hoped Nyx wouldn't get spotted.

They could potentially just walk up to the front door and ask to be let in, but without solid evidence bounty hunters could be denied entry on search and retrieve bounties. If Nyx could spot the statue through one of the windows, it would be enough to grant them entrance.

But Nyx came back a few minutes later, materializing out of her smoky form next to Arc, and shook her head. "The statue doesn't seem to be on any of the three floors."

The albino fox leaned her head against the fence, thinking.

"Vat about orphanage?" Arc asked. "Could statue be there?"

"That's not a bad idea. Maybe old Freud got the statue to entertain the kids or liven up the place."

The couple made their way to the large building next door. It was only one floor, but it was large enough to fit 20 bedrooms, a communal bathroom, kitchen, living room, and a main office.

Unlike with houses, the orphanage and other public places bounty hunters had free reign to enter at any time, night or day. If the door was locked, they could pick it (Which Nyx did with the orphanage door) or wait until it was unlocked by the owner to enter. Anything that was broken while they searched, a bounty hunter was required to replace.

Nyx pushed the final pin up on the deadbolt and turned the lock with her tools with a click. Standing up and pocketing her lock picking set, she opened the door to the orphanage with a quiet creak.

It was dark inside, all the candles had been snuffed out and all the kids had gone to bed. They'd have to be quiet to not disturb any of the sleeping children.

They carefully stepped past the main office and down the hallway to where it branched off in two directions. One direction led to the bedrooms and bathroom and the other to the kitchen and living room.

Peering around the corner towards the bedrooms, Arc spotted candlelight flickering underneath one of the doors at the end of the hall. She tapped Nyx on the shoulder and pointed to it.

Together, they made their way down the hall toward the light. Arc was careful to step more on the back of her paws so her claws didn't scrape against the wood. Nyx could retract her claws, so she didn't have that issue.

They reached the door the light was coming from and Arc opened it slowly. Inside was a simple children's bedroom. A small bed was nestled in the corner with a nightstand. A dresser was on the opposite end of the room and there was a desk next to it. The light was coming from a single lit candle on the desk, and sitting at the desk, staring blankly at a book, was a bronze statue.

Arc opened up the bedroom door all the way and stepped inside, Nyx close behind. She headed straight for the statue to get a better look at it.

It had been molded to look like a young wolf boy no older than 16. But the detail was immaculate to the point of being almost impossible to accomplish. Arc got closer to the statue, noticing each individual strand of hair on its head and fur on its coat.

It was breathtaking.

"Does it really move?" Nyx asked quietly, examining the statue herself, going as far as to touch the coppery surface.

As if in response, the statue turned a page in its book before falling completely still once more.

Nyx's mouth gaped open slightly, amazed. "How does it do that?"

Arc reached up and stroked the statue's arm gently, the fur feeling as soft as the real thing. As she did. The statue's head turned to look at her. She could almost see herself reflected in its gaze. Somehow it seemed to look curious.

Arc reached up and cupped the cheeks of the young bronze wolf boy, wonder filling her. "Because he's alive." She whispered, talking more to herself then Nyx.

She dropped her hands and after a few moments of staring at her, the bronze wolf turned his head back to his book and continued reading.

The sound of someone slowly walking into the room broke Arcs attention away from the boy. Nobleman Freud stood in the doorway, cane in hand.

He was an old bird, a blue jay to be specific. But age had dulled what feathers remained. His body was wrinkling and saggy, and he looked tired, but his eyes still retained the vigor of a more youthful body.

"His body, inside and out, may be lifeless metal, but his mind is keeping his sense of self very much alive." He spoke in a slow manner, voice raspy.

"What happened?" Nyx asked.

"His coming of age Alchemical ceremony." Freud answered, making his way to the bed and slowly sitting down with a creek. "His heart no longer pumps, his lungs no longer breath, and he no longer needs to sleep or eat."

"So he was sold as a statue?" Nyx's left ear twitched. "That's awful."

"People will pay a lot for a statue that can move. Imagine having a beautifully sculpted moving statue. The perfect quiet servant or an attention grabbing lawn ornament."

"Vhat you going to do vith boy?" Arc asked.

Nobleman Freud took a deep breath. "A friend of mine who lives out in the country is coming by tomorrow to adopt him. He will raise the boy as if he were his own son. But I suspect Pike has hired you two to retrieve him."

"No," Arc said, standing up straight and stepping closer to Nobleman Freud. "I mean, yes ve vere hired, but no, ve von't be taking boy."

"What will you do, then?" Freud inquired. "The contract of the bounty ensures that you finish the job as long as you're getting paid."

"But we haven't finished the job." Nyx said, standing next to Arc and holding her hand. "The trail for finding the statue went cold when we couldn't find anything at the bushes the bandit had told us to look for. We spent the next week and a half searching aimlessly until Pike was no longer paying us and we were forced to cancel the bounty. By then the boy should be with your friend far away in the country and even if Pike hires additional bounty hunters, they'll reach the same dead end."

Nobleman Freud chuckled quietly, which eventually turned into a light cough. He stood up with the help of his cane and smiled. "Then I'm assuming we never met."

Arc shook her head. "Ve vere just on way home."

"I hope the two of you stop by sometime."

Arc and Nyx slowly started heading out when Arc's free hand was grasped by something cold and hard. Turning, she saw the young bronze wolf boy. He looked up at her and his mouth opened and closed, silently forming words. She smiled and put her hand on the boys head, leaning down and giving his forehead a light kiss.

"Take care, yes?"

The boy nodded, the corners of his mouth pulling up into a small smile.

As Arc held Nyx's hand again and walked out of the orphanage Nyx looked back at the building as they walked away.

"What did he say?" She asked.

Arc smiled softly again. She couldn't hear his voice but she could certainly read his lips.

"He said, 'thank you.'"

---

Thank you for reading! May you're inner fire burn strong