FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

~ Author's note, the chess game included is from the opening of David Janowski vs Lasker, played October 21st, 1909. The story uses the classical notation to lay emphasis on what I want to call out, the link below contains algebriac notation if you'd like a game easier to read.

~ Reference: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1064720

~

~ Adjusting the carry-on bag hanging from his shoulder, the lion slipped inside of the airport bar simply titled 'The Bent Turbine'. Glancing around the intermittently lit lounge, Jake couldn't help but think the name was a bit fitting as he checked the back of his boarding pass to verify the directions, 'Bent Turbine, 9pm, play a game' scribbled with permanent marker which seemed to be running out of ink at that time. On the far side of the bar, across from the pool tables, a raccoon smiled and waved her paw at him.

~ As Jake approached, it became clear that the raccoon had a chess set prepared for his arrival. She must have either colluded with whoever had left the airline tickets in his mailbox, or had followed her own set of directions in similar order. The lion grinned a bit; he had feared the game would be darts or some sort of poker match. He had hoped for pool; he at least had a basic familiarity with that, and chess was a pleasant surprise. He had held his own back in school, now finding himself a bit at ease as he slid into the bench seat and pulled out his pen and battered notebook.

~ "Good evening, ma'am. I believe we have a game scheduled?" The raccoon smiled broadly, taking a sip from her warm beer as she gestured for Jake to make his opening move. He slid his pawn to King's four, and she answered in kind with her pawn to King's four as well.

~ The raccoon began without prompting, "My home was a calm place, orderly", as she answered his knight to King's bishop three by moving her own knight to King's bishop three. "I planned the tiny things to all fit together, perhaps a little too well in the end." Jake moved a knight to Queen's bishop three, the racoon answering in kind with a knight to Queen's bishop three as he inquired, "So things didn't work out as you hoped, on the larger scale?"

~ She leaned back with a chuckle and a heavy draught of beer as Jake's bishop launched out to knight's five. "No, I can't say that things did..", she paused to answer the lion's bishop with her own to knight's five, "..else I'd not be here to get interviewed, hmm?" Jake eyed her drink a bit covetously, wishing had one of his own. He gestured to hers, "Do you mind if I?.."

~ The raccoon chuffed happily at his honesty, "I didn't mean to keep you from it! Feel free!" Castling, he excused himself to the bar to fetch a cheap beer. He returned to the game with a beverage, to find that she had also castled. "You said things didn't go as you'd planned?", sliding a pawn to Queen's three. With just a moment of regret in her tone she signed and slid pawn to Queen's three as well. "No, things kind of settled together and stopped really happening." Jake raised an eyebrow at this, moving bishop to knight's five. The raccoon settled into a bit of a mischevious grin, answering by taking his knight with her bishop.

~ She continued, "So everything I laid out and planned went more than a little pear shaped, so I skipped town and started to wander." He took her bishop with a pawn as he inquired, "Are you trying to find something? Hoping to find someone?" Her knight retreated to King's two, "Nothing so simple as romance, if that's what you're asking. I enjoy my work, and sought more of it." Jake nodded, sliding his bishop cautiously to Queen's bishop four. "What did you end up finding?"

~ The raccoon seemed to beam a bit, as though he'd finally asked the right question. "I found that most of the work to find was done, but I kept at it and was duly rewarded. I got to create." Her knight to knight's three. The lion could readily see the obvious followup question, moving a knight to rook's four. "What did you create, ma'am?" He looked to her, eager to add her reply to his book of notes. She took a tired sip of her beer, knocking her king over. "I concede. Let's play pool."

~ She slid out from the bench seat with a nimbleness that he hadn't yet seen in her and by the time he was standing she had tossed him a pool cue. The table was racked, though he did not catch by who. The raccoon added with a firm nod, "Oh, and buy me a pitcher."

~ "Ex..Excuse me?", the lion's stipend wasn't so long that he could afford too much in the way of beer along with the other sundries of his unexpected travel, and he wasn't sure that he had heard her right.

~ The raccoon raised an eyebrow incredulously. "It's the place of priests to obey the commands of gods, last I knew." Her grin was emphasised by the tip of her pool cue deftly jabbing the holy symbol concealed beneath his shirt and worn around his neck. They both knew that the short of a god would be willing to make such a bald claim to a priest of Anderssen, a well known god of locating truth and revealing knowledge. Without further protest, he shuffled over to the bar to order two pitchers to their table as she took the break shot.

~ As he lined up his own shot, she seemed to relish the fresh beer. "As I was saying, when I got here it seemed that everything to create had been created. All the threads of the great tapestry of existence were woven and accounted for. So I worked with the only material I had left." She had taken up his notebook and was scribbling in some sorts of drawings, as he looked up to wait for her to take her own shot in turn. She dismissively waved at the table. "Just keep playing without me; the symbolism of conflict was satisfied with the Chess. Now I just don't want the three quids I gave the table to go to waste." She had finished the drawings without even looking up.

~ "Aren't gods usually... ", he gestured at his notebook as she was filling in tiny equations and annotations, "...not so direct as this?" He was becoming a bit nervous. The pleased grin from his correctly placed question remained, replying with truths only she could get away admitting, "Your local gods don't have the wisdom on seeing a realm fizzle, and kind of have a stick up their butts about giving you mortals a bit of direct help with the tricky bits." She tossed his notebook ontop of his backpack, lifting the remainder of the first pitcher to her lips.

~ The god drained it in a smooth draw, letting out a satisifed croon as she set the empty glass back down on their table. "All that was left here to create with was nothing, so I did. That machine I've drawn up in your notebook should create a pocket of truely nothing, and those scientists..", nodding towards a group of rather panicked and disheveled ferrets and badgers sort of stumbled into the bar as a clump, "..are eminently qualified to be able to figure out just what I made out of it."

~ The mustelides appeared to be arguing over a lack of anything to present to a grant committee in the morning, with nothing having come to them on the flight in as they had hoped and prayed for. Jake looked to the raccoon for some sort of assurance or instruction, when she offered him his own notebook and the second pitcher of beer he had bought. "Share both of these with your new friends."