FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The farmer's market was always a busy place, and today had been no exception. Ildac squeezed and weaved through the crowd, each hand holding onto a plastic bag filled with fresh fruits and vegetables. Living in the mortal realm was tough for the angel at times, what with limited use of his wings, the need to go out and mingle with mortal crowds, and whatnot. At first, he had been reluctant, having grown accustomed to the comforts of his Goddess' world and the benefits of walking the immortal plane. Mortal bodies, like the one he'd been made to occupy while he walked Earth, were more difficult to maneuver, heavier and overall less appealing to someone who'd been disobeying every law of physics since he learned how to walk. Spotting troublemaking demons while associating with mortal crowds was easier than flying overhead and doing a spot-check, though, and these undercover angels were far more common than any mortal could comprehend. So there was Ildac, being bumped left and right by shifting masses of people and generally not in a very good mood. "People out here are just as bad as the ones in the city." he grumbled to himself and sighed. Ever since he'd lost his memories, he'd been traveling... looking... searching. He had no idea what he was looking for, or what had happened to cause his amnesia. Kora had been adamantly silent on the issue. She tried to put up a veil of ignorance, but Ildac knew his Goddess better. She knew, and for whatever reason, she found it necessary to keep it from him. Had this been anything else, Ildac would have known to leave well enough alone. It wasn't "anything else", though. This was several thousand years that he had lost... if even that. He couldn't even tell exactly how many years it had been since he could last remember anything, and no one was about to tell him. The fox could have easily forgotten half of his twelve-thousand year life. It wasn't long after his bout of amnesia, he wagered, that he was put on Earthbound duty, combing one area for demonic influence before moving on to the next. Ildac didn't stick around for long. His lodgings were always inns or hotels or kind mortals letting him stay the night. The angel had slowly grown fond of mortal kind during this long assignment. For every horrible, warmongering person in the world, there always seemed to be at least one kind-hearted soul to balance them out. Thus, Ildac's heart grew a little warmer toward the people he'd been assigned to protect. A noise roused him from his thoughts. The crowd parted as someone stumbled and fell forward. Apples and tomatoes rolled from a broken bag, and a wrinkled old human woman struggled to gather them. Ildac knelt and began to help her, smiling kindly to the lady and handing her the escaped fruits, "You alright, ma'am?" "Oh, just fine. Thank you, dear." the woman seemed to be just fine, as she said. She gave him a smile in return... a smile that struck the fox in an oddly-familiar way. Ildac's brow furrowed at the strange sensation he felt, like an itching in the back of his head. "Something wrong, dear?" "Huh? Oh, no. Um, just a little lost in thought." the fox laughed as best as he could and helped the old woman onto her feet, "Be careful now." "Thank you, sweetie. You have a good day!" Ildac watched as the woman wandered back into the crowd. Her face... He'd never met that woman in his life, but...

Yes, of course. Way back when...

The storm had hit earlier than the forecast had said. Ildac steps up to the door of the little cottage outside of town and knocks lightly. He is welcomed with open arms and led inside. "We don't think it'll be much longer." he is told. The husband and wife who take care of the house both have tears in their eyes. The children have been sent to bed early, having already said their goodbyes to their grandmother. "Too young," Ildac had been told. "They are too young to fully understand death." "Understand death"... Is there truly such a thing? Even as an angel, Ildac sometimes finds himself questioning his knowledge of the end of all things. Truthfully, the parents know as little as their children. What they have that they don't is the understanding of its inevitability, and hearts strong enough to endure the pain that it brings. "Please, go inside." the man says, clearing his throat and ushering Ildac along, "She'll be so happy to see you... on today, of all days..." Ildac steels himself. It has been twenty years since he's seen the woman who now lie on her death bed. Twenty years of traveling. Twenty years of fighting, killing, suffering... What had she gotten up to since they last spoke? The fox opens the door. The faint light of the hallway pours in through the steadily-opening wooden door and shows Ildac the face of the woman he's been apart from for so long. She is old and wrinkled... and very sick. Her breathing is shallow, but still noticeable for now. That will soon change. Ildac leaves the door opened a crack as he walks in, taking a seat on the chair next to the old bed that the woman had surely not risen from for a long while now. "Hello Mary." he says lowly, not wanting to speak too loudly. There is no answer at first. Mary seems to be soundly sleeping. "I traveled the world, like I said I would when we met. Scaled the tallest mountains... Sailed the deepest seas. Oh, the things I wished I could have told you about, had I... had I been able." Ildac had met Mary when she was only nine years old. She was the daughter of a merchant in town, and was always very chatty with her father's customers. Her mother had died shortly after she was born, and since her father was always so busy, she didn't get a lot of the attention that she needed. When Ildac had told her that he was traveling, she asked him about all the places he had been... and for the most part, he told her. He told her of the lands across the sea and over the mountains-- lands that most would never see in their lifetimes. It was these stories that he kept light-hearted and full of happiness and wonder... all things fitting for the mind of a child. When Ildac left, Mary asked him to come back and tell her more of his tales. The angel made no promises... but sure enough, every few years he would return with more tales to tell. Mary would grow older, and Ildac would remain the same. As the girl grew more mature, Ildac's stories would change. He would tell her of battles and conflicts he'd witnessed, some of which he'd been forced into, others he'd merely observed. He never told her of his true purpose-- why he traveled, what he was, and why he never seemed to grow any older. Eventually, Ildac became busy. The world was growing more advanced and populated, and demons were popping up more often. He would go away for several years at a time before returning, each time with more stories to tell his friend. Then, one day, Mary had grown up. She'd met a man and fallen in love. She'd had a child of her own-- her son, who now sat weeping in his living room as she prepared to make her final voyage into the great unknown. "I'm sorry." Ildac says with a sigh, "I'm sorry I'm so late. I know I promised I'd come back soon, but I... heh, well I guess things got busy." A voice finally rises up in response to him. "Foxy..." Mary said, opening her eyes and giving him that same gentle smile that she always had, "You've no need to apologize. I know how a traveler's life is. After all... you've only told me about it for years." Ildac's heart immediately aches. The sound of her voice is so different from the last time. Gone is the little girl's melodic giggle. The young woman's carefree laugh is nowhere to be found. Her middle-aged chuckle has vanished. All that remains now is the sound of old age in his friend's tired voice. Mary coughs a hacking cough, and Ildac takes her hand in his, "I wish I'd come back sooner... Maybe I could have..." "Nothing could have helped me, Foxy." Mary manages to calm her cough, taking a sip of water with her vulpine friend's assistance, "I'm just glad... that I could see you one last time." Ildac is glad, too... but he can't bring himself to say it. For all the mortals he'd seen come and go in life, none had buried themselves so deep in his heart as Mary. She had become a sort of beacon of hope for Ildac-- something to look forward to after a long fight with a troublesome demon, or a long journey. The cure to a harsh loneliness that often overtook his heart. Now that cure was slipping away. Ildac would soon be alone again. "You never did tell me." Mary says after a long silence, "Why you never grow old. Why you always remain that young, handsome silver fox." His eyes are cast down. He is bound by divine law to never reveal his nature without cause... and feelings don't count. With a forced smile, Ildac says the only thing he can say: "Just lucky, I guess." Something in Mary's eyes tell Ildac that she knows the truth... that somehow she can see through his mortal disguise and see the vibrant angelic figure beneath. Her smile widens just a little, but she says nothing further on the subject. "I'm glad to have met you, Ildac." she says, closing her eyes again, "You gave me my childhood. The one that I needed, that my father could not provide. You showed me an image of the world that I could have never found on my own." The fox's throat begins to sting, and tears well up in his eyes. Mary's kind words hurt worse than the most horrible wound... and yet, they still bring him happiness. It is this bittersweet feeling that the angel hates the most. "You gave me hope, Mary." he says with a shaking voice. He is too proud to let himself cry in front of her, so he chooses and speaks his words carefully, "You gave me something to look forward to after my travels. You showed me far more of the world than my year-long treks across mountains and oceans ever could." The fox turns to her finally, smiling genuinely for the first time since he'd arrived, "I'm glad to have met you, too." Fox and human, angel and mortal, share that bittersweet smile for a moment that seems to last an eternity. For this moment, they understand one another. Ildac's nature need not be said in words. His eyes do all the speaking for him, as do Mary's for her. "Then I can truly die in peace." the old woman says, sounding so very tired. She lays back, finishing off her water and letting out a long sigh, "I've already said my goodbyes to everyone but you... and I suppose this is going to be the hardest one." The hint of tears appear in her eyes now-- a sight that nearly breaks the old, battle-hardened angel. "As I said, my childhood would have been empty if it weren't for your visits... I looked forward to them every year, and even on the years that you didn't show, the stories you'd told in the years before were enough to keep me dreaming... of the world outside this little town. I always wanted to go and see them, but..." "But what?" Ildac gives her hand a little squeeze, not wanting to rush her, but anxious to hear her out before the end. "Well..." Mary chuckles and squeezes back, "I started a family. Before I knew it, I was settled down with nowhere to go, and one day I realized that, even if I hadn't settled down, going out and seeing the world wasn't something I would have been happy with in the end." "But why?" "Because, Ildac..." she gives him that smile again, and for a few seconds her eyes seem to be the same as those of that child he'd met so many years ago. "Because... if I had gone and seen the world, I doubt it would have been anything nearly as wonderful as you'd described it. It would have ruined everything you had done for me." Another dagger in his heart... No, not a dagger this time. It felt painful at first, but it soon grew very... warm. "Your image of the outside world was more than enough for this girl, Foxy." Mary said, closing her eyes again. A sensation overcomes the angelic fox. It's one that he hasn't felt before... One very alien to him, but at the same time, so very familiar. Something like... fulfillment. Contentment. Maybe even happiness. The thought that he'd made any difference in Mary's life filled him with that same hope that he had felt each time he would see the little village rise over the horizon as he returned from one of his travels. Hope. That was the feeling. "Ildac..." Mary's voice suddenly sounds much weaker, "I've been holding on for this whole day, just hoping that I could see you... but I don't think I can hold on any longer." The fox's heart sinks. All this time, he'd been hoping that, somehow, she would get better... Some arrogant thought that his presence would make her better. Now it was time for him to face the truth. Mary isn't getting better. "Thank you, Ildac." the old woman says, feebly taking Ildac's hands to her lips and kissing it, "I'll be looking forward to seeing you again, on the other side... some day." "Mary..." Ildac squeezes her hand again. The tears flow freely from his eyes now. The floodgates have opened... and the fox begins to weep. "Hey now. Cut that out. You're tougher than that." "I'm sorry, Mary..." "You've nothing to be sorry about, Foxy." Ildac takes a deep breath. He reminds himself of who and what he is, and tries his very hardest to steel himself once again. Somehow he wrests control of his emotions and wipes his tears away. "Good, that's much better." Mary says with a smile. Though she isn't looking, she can tell that the fox is struggling against the weight of his sorrow. "I love you, Foxy. You know that." The hardest thing to say without crying... "I don't want you to be sad, alright?" Why did she have to say it? "You've got a long life ahead of you." Speaking to him like he's a child... Now their roles have been completely reversed. Ildac starts to feel more pathetic, now, than anything. "Well? Anything you want to say?" Ildac takes a deep breath. It's now or never. "I love you too, Mary." It hurts so much just to say it. "I just wish... I'd been around more." Mary shakes her head dismissively, "Don't say such things... Just tell me you'll be ok." Ildac is silent. Sure, eventually he'll be ok, but... "Yeah." he says after a pause. He wipes some of the dampness from his cheek fur and sighs, "I'll be ok." Mary smiles and nods, "Then all is well." "No!" Ildac wants so badly to say, "All is not well! All is not well! How could you say that?" He doesn't say it, though. He wants her passing to be peaceful, and becoming so emotional will make it anything but. "I think it's time we said goodbye now, Foxy." Mary says. A hint of sadness manages to sneak its way into her voice this time. Ildac reluctantly agrees. It's never easy to say goodbye. Never easy to watch someone slip away from you... but he knows that if he walks out before he bids her a final farewell, he'll never be able to live with himself. The momentary pain he'll feel today will pale in comparison to the wound it would inflict upon his heart to never send her off. Ildac takes Mary's hand and kisses it tenderly, tears once again beginning to flow. She doesn't chide him this time. This time, she cries with him. "Goodbye, Foxy." she says, her voice sounding so very tired. "Goodbye... Mary. Be safe in your passing." Nothing further is said. Ildac holds Mary's hand for hour after hour, feeling the faint beats of her heart through the veins in her fingers. Some time after the fourth hour, he feels the final beat. Mary had passed. Gone to the other side, where all souls inevitably go. Ildac says a prayer for his departed friend. "Rest in the embrace of the All Maker, and know everlasting peace. Death is not the end, but a new, happy beginning. May the light of your soul shine down upon your loved ones and carry you into the endless Heavens." Ildac kisses his friend's hand one final time, resting it upon her chest and rising from his seat. Tomorrow, he will set off on another long journey and fight another harsh battle. Such is the life of one who lives forever, in the name of protecting the innocent. The angel departs, leaving the little cottage for the last time. He will never return here again. A single black feather drifts through the wind as he disappears into the night.