FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Another four hours, at least!" Catri yelled from the porch, barely audible through the pounding, driving rain. "We need sieve tank four open!" Seeker dropped a sandbag, which slammed down into the mud with a wet splash.

He wordlessly loped off towards the far drop-off. All the meanwhile, he thoughtlessly passed their suffocated wheat crop, collapsing in the muddy soil. Above, there was only the marching darkness of thunderheads. They furrowed with the flashes of their interior charge, lightning reaching down to touch anything in their path a few miles away.

Seeker landed a knee in the mud as he crouched in front of a bar valve. He braced hard against the metal wrench affixed there and forced against the years of idle grime that had built up. With a wailing squeak it finally gave. Half a turn was all that was needed to start the automatic systems. The rugged things stuttered to life and the oversized wrench ratcheted along counter-clockwise amidst the patter of an overlarge acttuator.

There was a deafening crack nearby. Seeker instinctively jumped down to the ground as a tree exploded into splinters behind him. He practically felt the heat radiating away from the blast site as the remains of the tree fell lazily against his rain-cheater. He shimmied away through the mud of the bare access road, keeping his head above the occasionally pooling water.

He was deathly afraid that if he stood, the lightning would attract to him easily. But he had to get away from the squatting circle of trees nearby. He rose to his hands and knees and attempted to trot, stumbling through the thick mire below him on all fours. Meanwhile, the farmhouse was growing nearer.

For what felt like half an hour he trotted along through the squat wheat forest. Gradually, he picked out the cries of his mother. She was cautioning him. Another blasting streak of lightning landed against a forest tree behind the house, sending him into a hasty tumble. He flattened out on his back and put up his arms to block the rain. Nonetheless, it fell in a deluge into his cheater, soaking the coveralls he was wearing underneath.

He turned over and sprinted the last dozen meters, leaping up onto the front porch and into his mother's arms. His father had long since escaped to the safety of the porch and the house's lightning rod. As seeker arrived, Papa Garish threw a mix of a mild fit and crazed bouts of relief as he patted his son on the shoulder. Now that Sieve 4 was open, the crop flooding would be minimized, they'd saved what they could. All they could do now was wait it out.

***

"I'm sorry, Seeker," Theia said, her arm around Seeker's broad shoulders and the side of her head nestled against his. Oh, how he wished they were truly alone... and it wasn't daylight.

It had been the worst-case scenario even though the fourth sieve was opened. A large fraction of the crop was turned over and soaking in the mud. This wheat would never see the market... it was fertilizer now. They might be able to make ends meet, but the Rotor was still acting up occasionally and they needed to pay for the harvest. Their reserves would be drained and they wouldn't be prepared for another disaster.

Theia nuzzled against his cheek, prompting him to speak. "What do you think of these rains, Theia? They were bad."

"Indeed they were. No place as this receives such rainfall but once in a generation," she sighed after a short pause. "What is more perplexing is that it does not match the cycles."

"What cycles?" Seeker was genuinely perplexed. Very few described the weather as cyclical, beyond the seasons, of course. Nature was an unpredictable mistress, giving, taking and as fickle as the shifting winds.

"The elders say there are great celestial beasts that control the seasons, waking and sleeping by timescales only they have knowledge of." Her eyes were transfixed at the slowly passing clouds, brooding and blocking the sun. "This would be an odd time for such a beast to awaken. It is too warm for the slow ones and too cold for the fierce at this point... unless one was roused from its slumber by interlopers."

"Interlopers," seeker said aloud as he rolled the word over in his mind. He supposed it was possible humans could have done this. This was most likely as Theia's people seemed much too caring to do such a thing. Similarly, he knew what humans had done during the epidemic, after the population centers had been wiped out and the survivors had scattered...

"I wonder if anyone could do something," he mused, he didn't want to see all they'd done collapse now, after his father had fought hard to turn this rock-ridden soil into something workable.

"I wonder as well."

***

Seeker and his father crowded around the strongbox containing their platinum stores. They both looked on morosely, seemingly attempting to elicit some constructive response from the inert objects within. "Well, son, this is a mess." He let out a sandy sigh. "A good quarter of this will be gone with the harvest and the re-tilling. More fields will be lying fallow this year and the contractors will be mincing up the fallen crops as fertalizer for the next batch."

"We'll be in the poorhouse soon, eh?" seeker asked. "I could-"

"Agh, don't start with me, Seeker, your place is in these fields!" Garish said with exasperation.

"Dad," Seeker said, looking up pleadingly at his old man. "You don't need me here, the contractors can repair that old combine we have and Terry can handle it all, plus you and Mom."

"Argh! My poor heart, son, what have you done?" Garish clutched his chest and donned a comically inaccurate expression of shock as he toppled to the floor, laughing as he stood again. "Son, you can't do this to me. I need you here because your mother and I don't want you hurt out in the wilds. Any work outside our home is risky business, y'know. That's whether there's a shortage or not. I'd rather have you here."

"I know, I know, Dad. But Thee's looking after me, we're insepera-" ooh maybe pushing it a bit far...

"Oh you are, are you?" Garish insisted wryly. "How's it gone, eh? My son has odd tastes in women, he does!" Okay, so was Seeker supposed to laugh it off like it never happened, or should he tell the truth?

"Uh, you know..." ah, to hell with it! His dad had been his best friend since he could remember. "We really ARE inseperable right now... if you get what I-"

"Ah! Say no more!" his father said cheerily. "A woman's a woman, m'boy! That's all your heart cares for when it comes to selection."

"Yeah?" Seeker asked tentatively, not believing his luck.

"Yeah! You know, my boy," he said, patting Seeker hard on the back and making him stumble, "you ought to know that your mother and I got married in an age where it was formality. The preachers might still spout it but this family doesn't answer to them. I trust your judgement, Seeker, you're my son." He finished again, making Seeker stumble with another resounding slap to his shoulders.

"You just remember to do good for yourself. You seem to have the right idea, my boy, if you catch my drift." He did. "We'll keep it mum, my boy. Your mother might be a bit alarmed- I told you how eh... devout her parents were. Puritanical upbringings" He leaned in close. "You know, my boy, I was the one who convinced her being with an agnostic and whatnot wasn't so bad. Ah, she was sold at hello, I think."

He paused and leaned back, his face turning a hint more serious as he stared up at Seeker. "We may just talk with the contractors. Repairing the mech' might be a good investment. I'll think about your... proposition" Of course, Seeker hadn't even said an entire sentence on said ‘proposition.' But, that was what you got from an ex physicist, intuition.

***

"Thick clouds pass in the west!" Theia yelled over the distant din of harvesting machinery. "sundown approaches and dangers with it!" Theia was braced against the wind, her silky fur flying about in the waning, orange sunlight.

"Hey!" came a wiry voice. Seeker shifted to face the approaching, fatigue-laden figure of one of the foremen with the contractors, Dustin Haley, as he approached. The skinny man plodded up to Seeker. The gear he was laden with clinked noisily as he settled a few meters ahead. "Who is she?" he roared over the wind and the rumbling engines in his soprano, anglo-saxon voice. He seemed young and inexperienced to Seeker. Most of the other foremen knew about Sirens. It was more than what Seeker knew, save a few very important and specific things about anatomy...

"Theia," Seeker said. The man raised an eyebrow and cupped a hand over the part of his helmet obscuring his ear. "SHE'S THEIA!" Seeker yelled. The man nodded. "She's pretty smart about this kind of stuff, you should listen." Seeker continued.

The man shrugged. "We'll see, you wanna' take this up with the boss?" Seeker met the man's challenging gaze and nodded. "Right, let's go then." He turned and plodded off in his peculiar, shifting gait. As the pace quickened into a jog, Seeker easily kept up.

In short order, they'd closed the distance between their location and one of the command trucks -- one of the two "tanks." It's form was clearer out away from where Seeker had seen it before, smashed in together with the rest of the convoy. It was a huge metal box with massive interlocking plates of metal, painted in dull-yellow and black pattern-breaker camouflage. Around it, a few troops were setting up a parameter with huge lamp-gantries.

The foreman waved at the truck as they stopped nearby. Immediately, the cab door opened and the heavyset man Seeker'd seen earlier at the Bazaar bounded out to meet them. "What's up, Dustin, why's the kid with you?"

"You tell him, man." Dustin said looking to Seeker.

"Right," Seeker said, well at least he wasn't being represented by proxy. "You see that girl in the fields over there?"

"Over where, there's no one in the fields."

"Hello, Seeker. You mentioned me? I heard you yell out my name." The girl had amazing hearing.

"Well, her, Theia," Seeker spouted awkwardly, motioning to the lithe feline at his side, one arm impatiently akimbo at her hip. "She says you should stop operations soon. The sun's about to be obscured."

"Yes, yes, there is very little time." Theia said hastily. "If you do not silence the wailing your tools emit, there will be much fervor around us."

"Ah hell," the heavyset man grunted. "You mean Chimeras?" Theia nodded. "Ah, damnit! I'll get on the radio. He bounded back into the truck.

"Oh shit, you mean they have those out here?" Dustin asked.

Seeker nodded, "Yeah, was attacked by a few a month or so ago. They're bad right now."

"Well, shit on me!" Dustin said, his voice rising with elation. "You're THAT guy. The local townies can't stop talking about you! Hah, you got it good, man!"

The main foreman jumped out of the cab again. "I can't get cab 4 on the radio, his might be going fuckwitted again. Haley, you-"

"No." Seeker said. "I've got it! Where?" The main foreman hastily pointed off towards the far side of the field. Seeker immediately set off into a dead run. In moments he was striding off into the distance toward where the foreman had pointed.

"That kid sure can run! Must be pretty strong."

"If only you knew," Theia mumbled smartly. No one, save herself, heard.

***

"Stop!" Seeker yelled at the top of his lungs for the eighth time. He waved his arms in the air. Finally, the driver opened the cab and cupped a hand to his ear. "Stop the combine!" Seeker yelled as he stepped up onto the running boards.

"Why should I?" the man said, staring Seeker in the eyes. Idiot! Did he want to die?

"Chimeras." Seeker said. The man's eyes widened and he scrambled back into the cab and switched off the combine. It jostled to a stop, revealing no sounds beyond it. It was too late, all the night creatures had retreated. The two of them hadn't been in time. The Chimeras were here.

"You fuckin' idiot!" Seeker yelled, letting his backwoods accent flow out as he turned around and unholstered his gun. He didn't swear much, but this was a worthy time. He switched off the safety. "Ye've a gun?" There was a swish and a click behind him. Good. The rising whine of his own pistol reached his ears. "The foreman broadcasted a cease message. How did you miss it?"

"Radio had some static, didn't think anything of it." Seeker looked up when he noticed the dancing purple glow racing across the ground. In the sky danced luminescent, windy streams in all sorts of colors. The Sky Lights were brighter then usual. They tended to make radio communication hard, but they rarely ever interrupted short-distance transmissions.

The only sound punctuating the night was an all too familiar droning howl, Seeker climbed to the top of the cab and dropped to a crouch. They couldn't move in the fields now. Seeker only hoped the contractors would send a team to get them out.

"Can you run the headlamps?" Seeker asked. The man hefted a sub-machinegun in his hand as he turned around and raised an eyebrow. "Look, I have a good reason, do it. All the cab lights, too." Thank god he didn't raise any lip after that. He ducked into the cab. A moment later, the interior lights and the sodium head and tail lamps clicked on.

The further they could see, the less likely they were to be ambushed. They already stuck out like sore thumbs, anyway. Seeker knew just how easily it was to be out-sensed when you're already being hunted.

Seeker immediately saw a skulking form at the border of the circles of illumination cast around them. It charged at full speed. "There, to the left!" He shouted. Sparkling blue lines cut through the darkness and knocked the form out of the air as it leapt. Seeker briefly reached in his pocket and touched the clips there. One magazine was only half loaded - he hadn't fully expected this.

Another rush of spiked fur and growling, bared jaws. Seeker raised his pistol and blasted off two shots. One hit home and knocked the creature off its feet. As it tumbled, two more took its place. The driver blasted away at both of them. The one he missed leaped vengefully for him from in front of the tractor. It impacted with the hollow thud of metal on tines, knocking the man down.

He struggled with the snarling, barking creature as he smacked against the front of the cab. It bit and lunged for him, attempting to bypass his arms and his gun. Seeker acted quickly, swinging a sideways kick into its head and sending it flailing to the ground with a still-defiant growl. They were so aggressive now, even for Chimeras.

Seeker swung around on reflex and shot one-handed towards a snarl to his lower left. A form jumped away from the side of the tractor in a massive leap. Where were the contractors? Two new silhouettes slinked at the edge of the light. They moved in a distinct way compared to the Alphas. They were cautious and lithe, and larger in size.

There was a hellish wail, like a child screaming at the top of its lungs, the cry of a massive cat. A flurry of legs and tails marked the arrival of more. In some horrid way, they resembled mountain lions. But they'd changed nearly beyond recognition. They remained sleek, but they were much more fearsome. The glimpses seeker caught of their faces showed lines of tough flesh twisting in geometric patterns through their fur. Their pelts were, themselves, aggressive and sharp looking.

They snarled and hissed at the edge of the circle, waiting to break through. One stepped far enough that Seeker could see its lower body, the skin looked red and irritated.

A shot rang out like thunder through the depths of the night, ripping through the creature's skull. The remainder panicked, but half remained and chose to fight anyway. Perhaps they thought to make off with the two of them before they were caught. Seeker bared his teeth; he wasn't going to be taken. The driver piled shots into one that had streaked low to the ground, making for the running boards. Seeker spun around and shot repeatedly for another leaping the distance, it fell in a heap against the side of the combine with a weak, clamoring smack.

Another shot rang out, seemingly at nothing. Before he could register what had happened, Seeker was sailing towards the ground with a massive heap of a creature on top of him. It was covered in tattered robes and scraggly fur. It muttered and hissed as it stood on two legs over him, raising its paws to swing for his face. Renard raised his arms and heard a noise like a knife going through bandages.

It wasn't the sound of his own defeat. Rather, Theia stood over him, the creature clutching a small wound on his flank, standing in the light. Its muscular form stood on two legs, standing on the toes of feet that were almost human. It was a Siren!

Theia let out a plea of hisses and consonants at the creature, even the auditory content of the plea escaping Seeker. The creature snarled and shook it's head about as if trying to dry itself of water, or was it thought? What the hell was it â€" he â€" doing? At that moment it lunged for Theia, she screamed as it connected with her and rolled to the ground. It pinned her and snarled in her face, raising one hand. Giant scythe-like claws extended.

Seeker's blood boiled as he dropped to his side, getting an angle on the beast that wouldn't put Theia in the line of fire. Would he make the shot? Had to have a steady hand. They both struggled and made it hard to set it up. Seeker clenched his teeth as they continued to struggle away from his aim. The beast was about to roll again!

Shots rang out like the chirps of a massive cricket, ripping through the creature and sending it tumbling limp to the ground. Seeker thoughtlessly ran for Theia before it even hit the ground. As she rose, he put his hands on her shoulders, just to make sure she was still there. She jumped at the contact, her pelt stood on end and she was shaking madly, her ears tight against the back of her head and her eyes wide with a madness he'd never seen.

"Theia," he said, she was still shaking. "Theia, it's me."

Her lip quivered and she mumbled something under her breath. "Oh gods," she said aloud. "He almost... almost-" Seeker hugged her tight, her face fell on his shoulder and she broke out into a rash of rasping and whimpering that wasn't quite crying. Portable lamps flicked on and bathed them in blinding light. Seeker closed his eyes and shrank into her shoulder, hiding from the sudden caustic brightness. His own tears fell sporadically, an occasional gasp escaping him.

There, crumpled amongst each other in the blinding light with the eyes of the squad on them, Seeker was surprisingly able to think, but agony was just one misstep away â€" or had been. For the love of all things beautiful, this girl was suicidal! How could he ever stay sane falling in love with her the way things were going?

He decided he didn't care, she was safe and they were together.

***

They spent most of the night sharing the back of the vehicles with the contractors inside the parameter. Seeker spent most of the time with Theia, curled up in a cold corner of the command van, trying to sleep amidst the fear of another Chimera attack. Then there was the question of what that thing was that had stood on two legs. Was he really a Siren?

The almost silent, gentle hiss of Theia's breaths was the only sound that he heard or cared for. In the back of his mind, he was still waiting for a gunshot or the sound of a struggle to rip through the silence. It took all his focus just to banish the thoughts. He hugged Theia tighter and buried his face in her cornrowed hair.

***

Now, though, the night was behind him... so he told himself, anyway. Seeker sat on a chair, overlooking the fields from the porch of his house. He clutched a cup of hot cocoa as mummy Catri ruffled his hair. "You did what had to be done, Seeker," she said â€" perhaps as much for her own reassurance as his. All the same, it helped. "I know dad never wanted you to believe in the stuff I do," and he remembered when they fled Bangor during the inquisitions, when food was running low. They could have stayed and been spared as "devout," but neither dad nor mom had been okay with what was going on there.

Seeker was sure mum was remembering, too. "But, all the same, what the priests spout isn't my own. You did a good, saintly thing today. Saving lives while walking through the valley of darkness..." She trailed off awkwardly, unsure of herself. Seeker reached up with a free hand and rested it on her shoulder.

"How's Theia," Seeker asked expectantly. "Is she up yet?"

"Aye," Catri said. "She wants to see you. I'll go so you two can be together." Seeker looked up at his mom and nodded as much to acknowledge the statement as to show he also understood how she felt.

Seeker had a family to protect, especially if Dad... he wouldn't think about that, hopefully he'd never have to. But, no sooner had Catri sighed and stepped back into the house did he become aware of Theia's presence.

"Seeker," she sighed like a lost kitten. She hid inside the door, hiding from the rising sun like it would be the death of her, holding herself like she believed it was true. Seeker immediately sat the mug he'd previously been so focused on down somewhere nondescript. The mug thudded against ruddy wood.

Just seeing Theia like that washed him with a cold, bitter surge of empathy. All the same he didn't hesitate to step toward her. She turned her angular eyes on him, sad and worrisome. Somehow Seeker knew that wasn't right. That wasn't how it should be. Not a word passed between them, but all the same, Theia met his open arms with hers.

Her spring scent made the previous night's events flow back into his waking mind, the beasts, the intent of that one to kill her, the nightmares and half-sleep that followed, the smell of wet iron. He clutched her lean midsection like a life preserver cast into the storm-trodden seas he remembered as a child from the coast.

He buried his face in her shoulder, then finally had time to think through the swaying curtains of his emotions, previously falling like driving rain. She was here now. He sighed as she cautiously raised a hand to stroke through the scraggly hair at the back of his head.

She was reserved and he knew all wasn't right, he remembered the look in her eyes again, and that he still hadn't said a word. There were things he had to do, things he had to know.

"Theia," he said, a whispered plea as much as a call for conversation. He pulled back and looked over her face again. The only way he could describe her expression is that it had conflict throughout. But between what? "Why did that monster attack you?" she gently shook her head and closed her eyes, shivering slightly. "Why did you talk to it?"

"I can't," she choked on the words, almost as if she thought a noise too great would arouse some great beast from its sleep. Why wouldn't she explain to him? When she looked up again, his gaze hadn't shifted, attentive and demanding of her. She couldn't bring herself to tell such things as what was troubling her. Forl even she couldn't tell herself. And what use would this gentle boy be? But all the same, his gaze didn't falter. "Seeker, it is best if..." she found she couldn't speak up still. To think that she, most competent of the Wilderscouts, would be reduced to such things, it almost made her blood boil...

"Please," he said, "tell me." He paused and looked away, building courage in that weird, hesitant way he carried when he felt safe. Yet he didn't hesitate so in combat, especially the way he reacted around her. Such expedient clarity to his decisions, was he such with those things and people he treasures?

"I know it hurts... whatever it is," he said awkwardly and with a complete lack of competence as he turned back to gaze into her eyes. It sounded utterly forced, but Seeker was not a suitor at heart. Theia knew him instead to be of a purer sort than such a poetic, fleeting thing. His statement, though awkward, was more honest than the most dramatic pleas that had reached her in her life.

"Seeker," she said at length, stronger than her previous fugue-like state. "There is so much to tell to simply understand why I-"

"Then, I'll listen," he said assertively, eyes locked on her like never before. She didn't want to burden such a gentle, unique man with such terrible things as she knew. Would he look at her the same knowing it? She wanted to tell him... someone. She'd spent so long all alone with her darkest of fears.

"You don't know how dangerous it could be," against her weaker side, the other said; ‘I don't want to hurt him.' Or was she fooling herself? Would she ever survive alone?

"Please," he whispered. Bless his devotion; this was the path he'd chosen. For better or for worse. All the same, the conflict remained, but, just maybe...

"A feral siren," she said hesitantly. "He was a feral siren. When I saw him, I thought perhaps he could be reasoned with, but he was far too detached."

"What?" Seeker asked, suddenly sounding slightly fearful. Oh, don't let him lose his nerve now!

"His mind was taken, Seeker," she said. "Taken by the crueler side of nature that the pestilence brought down. The deadly life that gave birth to both my kind and your so-called Chimeras."

Seeker gulped. He would realize now what it meant. Let him react how he wanted! If he would be cruel, then that was the way it would be! Damn her for deciding to accept his father's offer of closeness and protection from her to his boy! Damn her and Seeker for ever meeting in the first place! Possible, horrible outcomes of what they'd be sentenced to together raced through her mind.

"I... I understand," he said. He was so hesitant, but in his voice was a single golden thread of bravery that held fast. ‘Please grasp it,' she said to herself.

It would be worse now before things would be better. But she would get it done, she was Theia Roseia of the East False Coast, dammit! "This state of mindless madness can descend on any one of us. Our balance of mind is delicate in the face of the great events we may face. When we are with our extended group of friends and family... we never face them alone. But I've not been with my Kin for nearly four soulstices."

"I understand," he said, much like before. For a moment, she was left to wondering if he'd been broken by all this, the thought of a dangerous creature that knew his flesh so intimately... He dove into her shoulder again, shivering like a child, beaten by the rain and left to comprehend his own inadequacy. "I don't want you to go crazy," he croaked, his voice broken by the ragged stammers that Theia knew immediately as a sign of grief, even though her kind did not grieve like he did. "I don't want you to go away!"

Seeker let the tears flow as he realized just how invested he was in Theia. He was limp with terror and grief at this new revelation. But to think that he would never have this woman that was so special to him, that understood him, again was even more unbearable.

In his confusion there was the island of the Theia he knew. Right now, he knew, she was likely as conflicted as he was. However, she was silent and she seemed to have a grasp on things, which was all the more vexing. In spite of her lithe form, she held him tight around his shoulders and back with strong arms. All the while he hung on her like a wet rag.

She rested her chin on top of his head and stroked gently across his back, making him stop rasping and whimpering into her shoulder. It chased the grief from him long enough for him to take control again. For a while, he let out only an occasional whimper and a sniff, but he waited until he knew the reflexive fits of his disquiet had gone before he spoke again.

"Where will you go?" he mumbled weakly into her shoulder, bathing in her verdant scent of pinesap and clean earth, now prickling his nostrils more than it had done during the beginning of the rainy season. It was so beautiful how even the smallest parts of her changed with time. He hoped he would never leave her before he knew every little change that took her.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I was sent long ago from my home by the Oracle at the Motor City. I had been chosen by his visions. He said there was great calamity in the east and I wasn't to return until I'd done all in my power to find and right the imbalance. I fear I never found where he spoke of. I cannot return having failed thus, I don't have a home."

"Yes you do," Seeker said assertively, hopefully. He pulled back and looked at her again, wiping stinging tears from his eyes.

"Seeker, I don't think I can become part of your family so easily-"

"Then... you have me, at least." She wondered if it would even work, such an odd coupling. Would he burden her? She looked back. His gaze into her eyes was honest. It was about then she realized she could truly love this man... she didn't have to be alone. Damn the consequences, she thought.

"Oh, Seeker," she sighed, closing her eyes and relaxing into their shared embrace. "You're so good to me." She would protect him and make sure he wasn't ever broken.