FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

His eyes scanned the horizon like a hawk searching for its prey. Night time was the most dangerous time in the wasteland but the trade off was that it was easier to hide in the wastes if you didn't want to be found. He saw the same sights every night from his perch just inside their own little sanctuary but every time he stopped to wonder what had gone wrong. This particular part of the wasteland was a city called New York, it was a bustling hub of activity several years back but after the clan wars had ravaged the united states not many places were safe let alone civilized. Chunks of concrete and metal girders were all around him, the reminants of a decadent civilization that had fallen in a few short years. Every night he looked at the bones of these hulking husks that were apartment buildings, stores, offices, and wondered the same few questions.

A stir behind him caused him to look back over his shoulder and smile, she was asleep for once. Usually she'd be up all night afraid to go to sleep because of the awful dreams she had. She was quite beautiful now even though when he had picked her up she had been nothing but a thin waif that looked as if she'd never had a decent meal. Her fur, short and a radiant silver color had a sheen to it that told him he was feeding her enough to keep her healthy. Food, water, shelter, all of these things that a lot of other people took for granted were hard to find and hold on to in the lawless territories. Her tail and ears were both healed from the slight singe she had taken from the fire that had claimed the rest of her family. Oddly enough she was the first vixen he'd ever seen. She had a long mane of white hair and her figure was filling out as she was coming of age. Tomorrow was her birthday, he had some regret that he couldn't give her anything special but it was special enough that they had found this abandoned bomb shelter underneath an old building. Complete with a convenient escape tunnel. He remembered when he was a boy that he had read something about abandoned subway tunnels and old passageways from the city's infrastructure.

Looking back on it, since he had been an architectural student and a history buff it wasn't really luck, he knew what to look for and where to look for it. She stirred again and he turned to look at her in full, wondering if she was having a dream. The green military-issue blanket she was curled up under bent and moved with her, he could see her body beneath it and his mind gave him pause. They'd been in the wastes for three years running from gangers, mutates, and the military as well and in all that time he hadn't been with a woman. His loins yearned for attention but he could never bring himself to educate her about the fine art of love making. They always seemed to be on the run and even if he'd wanted to be alone for five minutes to take care of business he dared not leave them unguarded for that long. She was naive and curious. Dangerous combinations when everyone wanted what little you didn't have.

Her face, the lovely statuette that it was, scrunched up in a frown. She was dreaming. He knew her dreams would never be pleasant, they were always fraught and wracked with vision of death, destruction, because that's all that was around them. When he had found out that she was a prophet, the only beings in the world that were able to tell the future, he had vowed to her dying mother that he would protect her with his last breath. That had been three years ago when he had defected from the United Militia.

Kneeling beside her he sighed and ran a hand across her head. He was sixteen when he'd been drafted and that same year he served his country as best he could until he saw the awful face of war and what it truly meant. The militia didn't care of innocent people were harboring 'the enemy' in a hospital for care. He had watched his platoon rape, loot, pillage, and destroy everyone and everything in their way. All except her, he had kept her safe and sound and hidden them both away in a cellar beneath a house far away from the hospital. She had been thin, undereducated, and malnourished but slowly he had nursed her back to health.

She writhed again and let out a sound he knew to be a gasp of fear, pure raw fear. Once she began the dreams it was hard to get her out of it. With a gentle hand he put his palm on her cheek and moved his head close to hers. "I know you can hear me, it's alright, you're just dreaming Sasha. Can you hear me? It's just a dream."

He watched for a moment until her features smoothed out and she looked peaceful again. With a sigh and a smile he stood up and walked over to the small window, looking out toward the only working entrance to the house they were staying under. The porch itself had been torn off and from his vantage, using a window in the basement; he could see the street and everything going on. Every now and again he'd hear a forlorn cry or a howl that pierced his soul down to the very core. Netherhounds, a mutated cross between wolves and some sort of nocturnal animal that made them smarter, faster, and generally more deadly. They ran in small packs and were fiercely territorial. Luckily for him he'd struck a 'deal' with the alpha hound that ran this territory by leaving what little food he could spare out on the steps a few times a week. In exchange they let the two vagrants stay in their territory with little hassle.

Reaching out next to him he pulled his rifle out of a nook in the darkness and began his usual routine of cleaning and maintaining it seeing as it was one of the few weapons they had left. Over the years he'd managed to keep enough bullets to supply them for protection. Time crawled by just like it did every night. He had read every single book that had been left, and readable, in the house even the manuals to household appliances and a few old newspapers from the day the house had been abandoned. Anything to keep the boredom at bay and keep himself from going stir crazy. They didn't venture out much because of the gang wars going on for territory and at night of course the hounds owned the streets, they seemed not to like daylight very much fortunately for everyone.

The dark casted phantoms of the night coupled with the light shone down from the moon made the shadows dance under a crisp spring breeze. Thankfully it was getting warmer, winter in the wastes was a dog eat dog eat man eat anything world that he was swiftly getting tired of. Sometimes he wished he could find a way into one of the few remaining compounds of civilization, the city-states that remained untouched by the rigors of war.

New independent cities were being founded every day by one side of the former government or the other. Having been split between three factions you'd think there would be a side for everyone to cheer for but unfortunately it never worked that way in real life. The New Confederacy was where he had originally come from, and unfortunately for Sasha furs were immediate servants and slaves that were used and abused by humans like him. The old government, now called the Unified Order, was just as bad on its citizens. The democracy they preached had swiftly become a monarchy, run by the president and the parliament. The last faction which was run by the remaining corporate powers of the world was just as bad. It's citizens were forced to wear ID chips under their skin and their lives were monitored at all times. Conglomorate Unified was no savior ether. Thinking on it he much preferred the sprawl and the lawlessness, the justice of a bullet to the justice doled out by the higher powers.

"Raist, you were supposed to wake me up two hours ago so you can sleep." The soft melodic voice came from behind him as a sleepy-eyed Sasha sat up in the covers and stretched in a manner only someone as lithe as her could stretch. She stood up and approached him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"You were dreaming, I just wanted you to get some rest since you don't sleep often, and not well when you do." He smiled and put his hand on her fingers for a moment then put the rifle back in its place.

Her grin pierced his soul even more keenly than the hounds could, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Especially the soft blue of her eyes, it looked as if he was staring into a tropical lagoon. "I know, I heard you. You pull me out of a particularly bad one."

"I know, do you want to talk about it?" He replied with a sympathetic tone to his voice, he knew how draining it was every night to have such dreams. His own dreams, while not prophetic, were definitely haunted by the ghosts of all the people he had seen killed.

"No, not really." She looked down to the ground and away from him as always when he confronted her about her dreams.

Very rarely did she talk about them and even then he didn't understand them the way her mother and the other people of her town had understood them. Most of them had been shaman and witchdoctors in their own right so this sort of thing was right up their alley. Unfortunately he'd been brought up in a city where technology still reigned over the newly reborn magic. "Alright, well I guess I'll try to sleep."

"You know it wasn't your fault." She said in a small, barely perceptible voice.

"I know, but there's nothing I can do to empty the guilt on my conscience. If only I'd had a bit more balls then, if only I'd done something more." They had this conversation so often it felt scripted, like the television shows they picked up over the wireless matrix. Without another word he laid down where she had just been and took in the sweet scent of her body as quietly as he could. He could still smell her on the blankets.

**

He was floating, drifting on an endless sea of nothingness with his only guide being the thoughts in his head. Slowly they began to form a pattern and a face took shape in the inky blackness. Sasha's mother, shot in the chest and bleeding from her mouth as she choked out a pleading run down of why he had to save her daughter. Her face began to melt and even though he tried to pull away her grip was strong on his camouflaged clothing. He couldn't scream, no sound would come from his mouth but in the distance he heard a soft clanking sound that he knew was familiar.

He sat bolt upright, scaring Sasha from her position at the window. She had been looking out at something just as the 'alarm' he had set up went off. A series of fishing wire trips hooked to tin cans and other noise making paraphernalia. He pointed to her and made a motion behind him then pointed at his eyes, one finger near each. Obediently she ran past him, jumped up and grabbed one of the rafters and swung herself up into a hole he had made in the ceiling. It was between the floor and the ceiling of the house and it was a crawlspace that only she could fit in. He could as well but only with lots of effort and grunting. She had several weeks worth of rations and a pistol with ammo stuffed within the confines of that place just in case something happened to him. Honestly though, he knew if something did happen she'd be like a rabbit in a fence full of hungry foxes. Snapping himself out of it he rushed over to the window and grabbed his rifle.

The night was still on but a slight change in color told him that dawn was fast coming. Movement in the slightly overgrown yard stole his attention quickly and instantly he knew what he was gazing upon. The hound he'd struck the deal with, he had named it scar because of the patches of purple-white fur that were missing from his hide and the various scars within those patches. He was old, grizzled and had won his position by a contest of strength alone. He was standing in the yard staring directly toward the window. Something struck him as odd, he had already paid his tithe for the week and silently he wondered if the frequency had just been changed on him.

Still the old hound sat there. For a long time he stared right back, into those ungodly hollow eyes of swirling black and purple with their white pupils. Something was changing; he sensed that at least and wondered idly if something was expected of him. The old hound stood up and left the yard as the first rays of dawn began breaking the horizon and before he knew it Scar was gone. "Sasha, the coast is clear. It was just scar."

"Really? That's weird; didn't you leave food for him this week?" She poked her head out of the hole and let her long untrimmed locks spill out toward the ground.

"Yeah, I don't get it." He shrugged and looked back out of the window then back to her. "Anyway, happy birthday Sasha. How does it feel to be sixteen? You're a woman now, legal in all aspects. If we were in my home town I'd be driving you to get your license and citizenship id."

"Well if we were in your home town I'd also be a second-rate citizen." She chimed in happily as she flipped her legs down and dropped to the concrete floor. "But at least I wouldn't be a slave."

"True, its ether slave, second rate, or in charge of everything. But who wants to live in and work for the mega corps?" He laughed slightly and put his rifle back into place. "I wish I had a better gift for you but this is all I have."

In one of his hidden pockets on the inside of his uniform he pulled a long golden necklace out, it was a symbol of Tannis, the god of the forsaken few, and protector of the innocent. His mother had given it to him and told him it would protect him when he needed it. "I want you to have this."

"That? But your mother gave that to you! I couldn't possibly take it from you." She held up her hand but he put it into her palm and closed her fingers around it before she could say more.

"Yes, she did. But under the circumstances I think you deserve its protection more than I do." He smiled at her and pushed her hands toward her chest. "Please, take it, I'd never make a good paladin anyway. My father was one, a great protector, but I'm no hero."

"I'll treasure it and keep it safe always." She opened her hand reverently and flipped the little medallion over in her hands to read the inscription on the back. "May the forsaken god shield you always Raist."

"You know you're my hero right, without you I'd be lost out here." She smiled for him and placed a kiss on his cheek.

"Thank you; do you need help putting it on?" He didn't wait for an answer before stepping behind her and putting the cross-shaped talisman with its fancy filigree in his hand. Slowly he lifted it around her head and clasped it behind her neck. All the while he breathed in her fragrance and tried to keep himself civil. Once he had it clasped he pulled her hair from underneath it, the fine stranded white hair flowed around her shoulders perfectly as he let it drop. He'd never felt more tense in his life. "There we go."

"Raist?" She said softly.

"Yeah?" He echoed close to her ear and pulled away from her to lean against the wall and regroup.

"Why do you breathe so hard when you touch me or get near me? I don't understand. You've been so tense lately like somethings wrong. Did I do something?" She turned around to him and her face looked troubled. He didn't like to see her upset.

"No! Oh no honey you didn't do anything wrong!" He paused for a moment and ran a hand through his short-cropped black hair. It was past his ears and near his chin line, definitely time for a trim. He scolded himself for getting to wound up and now trying to distract himself with other thoughts.

"Then what is it?"

"I... oh boy, how do I explain this to you?"

"Honestly, like you always do." She replied as she sat down on a nearby chair.

"Okay." He sat down across from her and sighed softly. He'd been putting off his talk because even though she was legal in all aspects but in his eyes she was still like a child. Barely of age to be thinking about such things. "Okay, how much do you know about men and women?"

"Only what you've taught me. Basic anatomy and physiology."

"Well, okay."

"You can stop saying 'okay' now. Okay?" She laughed softly. "Why are you so nervous?"

"This is a complicated subject. Sex is a complicated subject." He corrected almost hesitantly.

"Sex?" Her interest was piqued, he could tell because her ears perked forward instantly. "I remember you saying you'd teach me something about that later when we were studying reproduction."

"Sharp as a tack." He shook his head and ran a hand over his face slowly. "Sex is how humanoids reproduce. It's been a while for me, if you catch my drift."

"A while?" She looked down at his crotch then back to his face, he knew she had caught on, she was quick. "Oh, I guess I'm the only girl you've been around since you joined the militia huh?"

"That's right." He said with a nod. "I've gotten a little tense."

"Why?"

"Well, men are very basic creatures. Food, water, sex, sleep, work, play, sex." He laughed when she cocked one of her eyebrows up. "Yeah I said it twice, I know."

"So does this mean you want to have sex with me?" She said with a curious note to her voice.

"No!" He regretted that as soon as it came out from her facial expression. "Well yes, but no! I mean I'd love to but you're. I mean, you're beautiful. Drop-dead gorgeous, but I just. I mean I'm supposed to protect and serve you and I just figured that..."

He laughed and shook his head, looking up at the ceiling. This subject, of all subjects was making him uncomfortable. Trying to banter with his words he shook his head again and sighed. "I'm at a loss of words."

"So you do want to but you're afraid of the moral ramifications?" She said simply, much to his surprise.

"In so many fancy words, yes." He laughed and put a hand on her cheek. "I see my lessons are paying off."

"Don't change the subject." She leaned forward; her thin lips parted slightly and placed a kiss on him without warning.

He had no choice but to kiss back, he knew she was inexperienced, he knew that she didn't know the first thing about sex and pregnancy but honestly he was starting not to care. After a moment he pulled back and put his hands on her cheeks. "The paladins of my order would frown upon me taking advantage of my chosen."

"Your chosen requests this of you." She replied simply as she reached her hands downward and began fiddling with his belt.

**

A familiar clanking sound of cans and metal on metal drew them both from their stupor. Caught with his pants down he quickly pulled them back up and ran to the window to look out at the yard with the high fence. His surprise was genuine as he found Scar sitting just outside the window looking in at him. "Sasha, get into the bolt hole."

"Do not bother young prophet." A voice, old and grizzled issued from the lips of the hound sitting at the window before them. "I have come to warn you that your safe haven has been discovered. Protector, you must lead the prophet out of here to the safety of my den."

He was speechless; while intelligent he hadn't known that he hounds could talk. His surprise was written all over his face but he quickly snapped himself out of it and grabbed his rifle. Above all else he felt a certain empathy and exchange with animals; he trusted this hound as far as one could be trusted. "Do we have time to gather our supplies?"

"Quickly. Get your rations and weapons but take only what is completely necessary. Give yourselves enough leeway for a long walk." The hound squinted against the offending rays of the sun and lay down at the window to wait. My pack will escort you as best we can." The purple-gray fur on the hound seemed more dull up close, not vibrant like a younger hound. "The prophet must not be taken, for she is the last."

As he gathered their things and allowed Sasha to pass the MREs he had filched from a nearby ruined base he listened hard and pondered the current situation, why was he following the directions of a netherhound?

"It bodes well that you question the intent of all around you where your chosen is concerned. That shows merit as a good protector." The hound lifted his head and sniffed the air for a moment. "Before you ask, no I cannot read minds but your thoughts are pasted on your face as plainly as the moon shining down on a cairn."

A few moments of silence passed. "I do have a question for you though young paladin."

"What's that?" He asked as he took the last box and stuffed it into his duffel.

"Is it a common practice for a protector to mate with his chosen?"

"You saw that?" He asked hesitantly. Raist definitely felt the eyes of judgment on him.

"No dear boy, I have more manners than that. I can smell it even from behind this closed window." The old hound's matter of fact tone gave him pause.

"No, it's unheard of in my country but I did not mean her any harm. She was a willing participant. That I guarantee." He said in a semi-defensive tone. "There are no laws against it and she is over the age of sixteen, which is legal in all territories."

"I meant no offense young one, I was just curious."

"He's dealing with the moral ramifications." Sasha quipped in as she dropped down from the hiding place with two pistols tucked into her belt and a knife for each of them in her hands.

Taking one of the two offered knives he checked their weapons and turned to exit the basement with her in tow. She had been mysteriously silent up until this point, which conflicted with her inquisitive nature. "So are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"I dreamed this a month ago. I thought it was just a silly dream until he spoke, that was in my dream too." She sighed softly and shook her head, placing a hand on her stomach while he wasn't looking. He didn't want him to know that part of her dream was a pregnancy, her own. "I cannot reveal any more than that."