FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"One knife! Two knife! Three Knife! Four knife! Five...."

Another glittering knife flew upwards, and for the fifth time Kara caught it in deftly in his mouth, appearing to swallow the wicked thing. Kara continued to toss and swallow the deadly little daggers, dancing around playfully, making sure the absurd bells on his costume jingled to the crowd's delight. The announcer kept time, a black, hooded shadow near the wall, with a sourceless voice that managed to whip the audience into a near frenzy of joy.

Kara ignored everyone around him, except the voice, making sure to keep time with his partner. Kara was a golden lynx, his brown fur beautifully patterned with white and brown splotches. The jester outfit was his best, half purple, half silver, and embroidered with gold and an insane amount of bells. The jester's hat was kept on his head solely because of his ears poking through the sides of the velvet. Glaring red tears were painted below his eyes, and the tufts of fur at the end of his ears were dyed to match his outfit.

Kara tossed the last three knives up in the air, with an accompanying shout from the shadow. Kara jumped, catching the first and "swallowing" it, twisting around like a fish in a net to gulp down the second. He hit the ground beneath the third knife, flipped over, and let the point fall into his mouth. He stood and bowed to the audience's applause, the voice ending Kara's performance.

The assorted jesters faded out of the hall, replaced quickly with stewards serving food. Loud chatter erupted in place of the performers' music, and the king and queen began the feast. The Festival of Kolia brought all flocking to the castle, nobles, sycophants, peasants, cooks, jesters, slaves. The celebration honored the god of luck, a patron of all walkers of life. Most came to the castle for the best entertainment, which Kara and his fellows provided, or food, but others came to watch the politics. Seating arrangements around the king and queen spoke wonders for who was and wasn't in their favor, and who was likely to be hanged if they tried trading with the neighboring kingdom again. Hidden in the flickering candlelight and shadows of revelers enjoying beer and ale were those who refused to be seen: the Assassins, who alone policed the underworld for the king and queen. One of that select breed waited behind the dais, watching and listening only to what was necessary.

The Wizard's envoy sat next to the king himself, an apprentice seated next to him, shunting nobles and distant cousins farther own the table. The king and queen were ignoring each other, the king enthralled by whatever the wizard was saying, and the Queen was openly flirting with her distant cousin and ruler of a stronger kingdom than her own. The Assassin shifted out of his shadow, disappearing into the kitchens before the dessert was served to the seething crowd.

Fae was bored. Desperately bored, and his master was too busy chatting endlessly about the need for more funds, more research, yadda yadda, he just wouldn't shut up! He mumbled something about going to the bathroom, and asked, very politely, in his opinion, to leave. His master didn't hear a word. Fae stormed out, really pissed that he even had to come to this stupid thing. The only thing that had been remotely interesting was the lynx boy, and his swallowing trick. There had been nothing magical about it, or Fae would've seen it instantly. So how was it done? Fae bustled down the stone corridor, trailing formal silver robes behind him, looking for anything slightly interesting. He came across something sooner than he thought he would.

Fae'd found the kitchen! At least he could eat dessert before everyone else did. Served them right to, making him travel all the way from the academy for this. The stupid festival was utterly meaningless, just mass chaos endorsed by a carved figure he could blow up just by casting a c-level spell. He grabbed eagerly for the dessert tray, covered in cakes, muffins, and more sweets than he'd seen in his entire life. He worked his way up the table, past an endless array of delicacies, until he found the prize: a giant cake shaped like the castle itself.

"Just a bite...", he whispered, drooling already.

Fae never got to the cake. He found himself pinned against a kitchen table by the throat, a hand clamped vise-like around his neck. He whimpered as he felt claws push against his skin. He looked up, and saw one eye glaring through him like he was a rat. The eye finally looked away, and Fae noticed that it was a skunk that was holding him, its long hair combed completely over its left eye. Instead of the natural white streak in its hair, the skunk had purposely dyed it purple. The paw lifted Fae up by the throat, and carelessly tossed him into a stack of pots. The paw plucked him out of the mess of pots, ruthlessly shaking the robes until Fae was dizzy from being manhandled so much.

"Don't touch that one." The skunk's voice chilled Fae more than the strength in that paw; it reminded him vividly of a snake slithering over stone. The paw dropped Fae again. By the time Fae regained his footing, the skunk had disappeared. Shivering, Fae ran back to the main hall.

Kara and the voice were actually in full employment of the king and queen, and had their own room which they shared. The other entertainers traveled and entertained anywhere they could. They were free; Kara wasn't. The king had held Kara at his court for three years since first discovering the lynx in a wandering caravan, and had only accepted the voice as well because Kara threatened suicide if he wasn't allowed to stay with as well.

Kara hated the king. Now more than ever. His knife trick was only supposed to work with two, maybe three blades at most. The ten he'd swallowed were going to kill him if he didn't get them out now. Kara hastily pulled off the huge, jangling hat, his hair falling out from inside it, and ran over to a carved bowl he used for his gustatory tricks. Or at least in the aftermath of those tricks. Kara gripped it desperately, and began retching as hard he could. After three minutes, Kara succeeded in throwing up the first knife in a shower of slimy liquid and, more troubling, blood. He wiped his mouth, and looked down in pain and disgust at the dagger sitting in the bowl. Nine more to go.

He kept retching.

The voice walked into their room as Kara coughed up the last knife in an explosion of blood, food, and liquid. By now, Kara was drenched in sweat, and the red paint was smeared across his cheeks beyond all recognition with true tears. Blood was all over both the bowl and Kara's mouth, and he didn't have the energy left to do anything but lean, broken, against the bowl.

"Kara? Did you remove them?"

Kara let loose a massive, horrible sound, coughing up more blood in the process. He fell, delirious from the sudden pain, but was caught in the voice's arms. He fell into the voice's cloak, his head falling against a sleek chest. Kara was asleep by the time the voice laid him across his bed.

Kara awoke as he heard the voice walk back in. The voice was in his storyteller cloak, designed to hypnotize rather than make him invisible. That meant.... Kara must have slept for more than four hours, if they'd already reached the festival's finale. Dessert would be served next, at which time the entertainers were finally dismissed for the night. Kara sat up groggily, watching half asleep as the voice tossed off his storyteller regalia.

But if the voice had already finished telling his tale... that meant that the feast was over except for the dessert. That also meant Kara had missed his second largest duty: the voice's tale was supposed to be acted out while he told it, and Kara was the lead actor for it. The king would be furious Kara had missed it. Never mind Kara had warned him what swallowing that many knives would do to him, never mind Kara had performed it exactly the same for years, the king accepted none other than Kara to present themselves at his patron god's festival.

Kara thrashed in the bed, trying to get up, only to have the voice calmly push him back under the covers. Kara looked up desperately, still unable to speak. The voice, shed of his various costumes, was revealed to be a gray wolf. The voice wore a mask constantly, and he hadn't had time to remove the formal, black wood mask he wore for special occasions. The voice hated that one because it hurt to wear for long times, and was almost impossible to get off.

"Why - " Kara managed to ask before he dissolved into fighting off another hacking fit that would rip his throat more than the daggers already had. The voice rarely bothered to use any but his cloth masks because they were far easier to get on and off, and were infinitely more comfortable.

"I couldn't trust that crowd to keep their paws to themselves. I needed the extra protection for the first few minutes of the legend before they calmed down."

Kara only shook his head, oblivious to the fact that the voice had no way of noticing the gesture. He was in some ways lucky; nobody got in the way of his various tricks. They didn't want to get burned by the torches he was juggling, or get cut by the knives he could swallow.

The voice walked away; going to the dresser where he kept his various masks. He pulled out his plainest one, just a ribbon of red silk. Kara struggled to sit up, succeeding in getting himself propped up against the bed's head. The voice had finally pulled the formal mask off, and turned to find Kara.

For the hundredth time, Kara nearly started to cry. The voice's eyes were ruined, his eye sockets permanently sealed under a horrid mask of scars, sending wild tufts of white fur flying where they grew against the scar tissue. That mass of scars was why the voice perpetually hid his face behind cloth and hoods. When Kara had initially hid inside one of the jesters' caravans moving between cities, he'd made the mistake of hiding in the voice's home. The voice heard Kara immediately, but did nothing. Eventually Kara peered out from beneath a collection of silk costumes and masks, to see those scarred eyes staring directly at him. Kara had fallen backwards, ripping a hole through the cloth walls, to find himself on the road. The voice had taken Kara in, teaching him what tricks he could, and ensuring that Kara was taught the rest of his acrobatic skills by the caravan's best. Until they had run across the king, they had been relatively happy.

Kara had never been able to figure out how old the voice was under the scars, and didn't ask. The voice took the red silk and wrapped it around his eyes, completely hiding the scars while leaving the rest of his face visible. The voice shrugged, making sure his voice drifted to where Kara could clearly him. "The king tried to raise a fuss, yes. I told him, rather bluntly, that you would die if you tried to act after nearly killing yourself on the excessive knife trick. He grumbled anyway, but let us continue with a replacement. That boy wasn't bad, actually; he was quite an actor, but the king was blinded to it because it wasn't you."

Kara sighed and fell beneath the covers. The voice smiled as he heard Kara's movement, and walked over to sit on the bed. Something was wrong about this night, and even if Kara was in no shape to notice it, the voice could stand guard. The king was planning something....

Fae was once again bored. The voice's storytelling was interesting, but now the guests had to wait for the king to announce the dessert. Fae amused himself by summoning a mirror, ignoring the conversation around him as he fiddled with his magical creation, changing the images reflected in it from red, to purple, then to random clown faces. Fae was relatively young for his skills, merely a kitten to most of his peers at the academy. Annoyingly for Fae, he didn't look an hour over his true age of fourteen, with black and white fur making him look, if anything, younger. Fae sighed, shifting the mirror slightly. Fae nearly screamed at the new reflection, losing control of the magic. The skunk assassin grabbed Fae's mouth, shutting him up.

The king had brought the dessert forward, and was personally spreading the mini castle around his high table. He deliberately made sure his queen didn't get a slice, a fact she was too busy flirting with the prince to care about. The assassin leaned over, releasing Fae from his grip, and whispered something to Fae's master. The mage waved a hand dismissively, preoccupied with the cake in front of him. Before Fae could protest, the assassin scooped Fae out of his seat, and half carried the kitten out of dining hall. Fae panicked, meowing in surprise as the assassin put Fae down and began dragging him faster than Fae thought possible through the halls.

Unnerved by the iron grip on his wrist, Fae let himself be pulled headlong through the castle, gasping for breath that the assassin seemed to never run out of. The skunk was muttering under his breath, but Fae could only catch odd phrases of it. The voice was still creepily emotionless, even when tinted with anger. "Fool royals... wants to kill everyone in one go... no subtlety, no forethought as to whom else might be there..."

The skunk stopped so quickly Fae ran into him, but the skunk didn't move a muscle. The skunk looked back once at Fae, noting the sweat and rasping breath coming from the kitten. Even though it waited for Fae to recover, the assassin was obviously on edge, its tail flapping and ears in constant motion. Without warning, the assassin clamped onto Fae again, and even though Fae was ready for it, the pace was still far more than he could manage.

The assassin slammed into one door without stopping, pulling Fae in behind him. The voice stood up, growling in his throat. He couldn't see either of the intruders, but the kitten was more than obvious with its breath coming in giant gulps. The assassin didn't bother to confront the wolf. "Get out tonight. The king is busy with the massacre he's set in his dining hall, and with his queen. Get out now." Fae found himself tugged around and flying back through the castle before he could see what the blind wolf did with the news.

The rest of the trip out the castle was uneventful, though Fae was forced to use a spell to keep himself at the assassin's nearly impossible pace. The skunk stopped Fae when they reached the woods, ignoring Fae to watch the castle, as if his visible eye could pierce the stone and distance to watch what was happening inside the dining hall. Fae watched nervously, releasing his spell as he finally began to recover from their run.

There was only one observer to the events the king had unleashed in the dining hall: another skunk assassin, perfectly identical to the one that had dragged Fae away, except his hair was combed over the opposite eye. The assassin's white stripe over his eye was also dyed permanently purple.

Only the dinner guests as the main table, those invited by the king himself, remained. There was one problem: they were all dead. The cake had been very nastily poisoned, so only those the king had invited to their deaths had tasted it. Fae had been lucky, and extremely unlucky; one of the skunks had saved his life. He was also never supposed to be at the high table, where the cake was served.

The queen alone remained alive, next to her king. The queen was in panic, screaming at the top of her lungs. The king sipped his wine, sighing at her needless melodrama. He pulled her back into her chair, effectively shutting up her up. The king was a panther, while his wife was a fluffy, pampered snow leopard. He leaned over her, pinning her against her throne.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice, darling? Of course I let you pick the seating arrangements; everybody you invite to our table has slept with you. Even your darling cousin over there. I know fully well you've been plotting to assassinate me and his father, so you could make a great kingdom out of your incest. I'm not amused."

The king slowly, carefully placed a paw over his wife's neck, and began pressing down gently. She began thrashing, trying to break loose, but it was hopeless. "Shhhh. You don't need to say anything more. Kolia smiles only on those who survive without his luck, and you relied on him far too much. Your luck has run out." His paw pushed harder, and she began to truly panic as her windpipe was slowly crushed.

Suddenly, the pressure stopped, and she collapsed bonelessly into her throne, coughing desperately for air. The Assassin was gripping the king's wrist in a vise grip, holding the king paralyzed with pain. The skunk's left eye glared straight at the king as he whispered, "Don't overstep yourself, king. We agreed to this because she is a fool, and she only consorted with other fools. However, if you kill her, we cannot stop her family from taking a particular gruesome look at bloodfeud. Don't overstep yourself!" With the last shout, the skunk broke the king's wrist. By the time the king had recovered, the skunk had left the dining hall, leaving only the corpses, the broken queen, and the injured king.

This is my first fur story ever, let alone my only posted story; Yiff may appear in later chapters. Please comment, and thanks for reading