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Your ear twitches almost comically and you draw your face into a fierce scowl that does nothing to hide your dark green eyes. "What the hell is a human? I'm afraid I don't follow," you say in what I imagine you feel is a gruff enough tone to get me to obey your every command. As if being mean was the way to do it. I laugh aloud, drawing the blankets we had just shared up with me a little as I sit up against the headboard of the springy matress and creaky frame that passes for a bed in this inn. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but let's just say that furrekind was not always the dominant set of species on the planet." You growl a little, apparently annoyed at my answer and even now I feel sorry for using such a smart alecky tone with you. "Fine then, well then how's this for a question. You wanted that hug to mean more than it did or would, huh? Sounds to me as if you and your brother were close \Dominus//. My bother and I were such too, but I must ask... HOW close exactly were you?" I bow my lupine head a little, so very like your own save that my fur is snow white where yours is a dark shade of grey. "That," I say in a somber tone, "is a bit harder to answer..." * * * ..It was a lot more recent than our encounter with Pierce, by about three thousand years. Humans are by now extinct, the closest thing left being the occasional Neko. The world too had changed. Gone were the artifacts of high-technology, and with them the increased tolerance of others' cultures that their easy communication allowed. The furres had taken over and opted for a natual, almost feral lifestyle by today's standards, but the noble aims behind that choice were lost in the intermittant generations. They had now progressed to what you would call the dark ages. An age of nearly unchecked power, both magical and otherwise. An age where "noble" kings claimed to own the working peasants, and where offending someone could very well mean death unless you had the power to protect yourself, either political or actual. It was one of the few periods in history when I doubted my decision to aid the furres instead of the humans. It came to a head the day I took the name I use now, when a pope decided that simply living chaste was not enough, and that just being homosexual warranted death. It was a warm day... * * * ..warmer than any Rome had seen in a good number of years. He and I were lying together on the bed we shared in the monks' quarters of one of the smaller monastaries in the city. It was called a bed, but really it was little more than a bag of straw lain atop a woven twine frame, but with him in my arms it was the most comefortable bed in the world. We'd never actually done anything because of his vows of chastity, but anyone in the monastery knew we were practically married in every way but officially. They knew we loved each other, and any one of them probably would have petitioned God himself for a pardon if we had slept together. To the monks that lived there we were a testament to faith, a prime example of how a priest should live his life. To the soldiers they sent to capture us, we were heretics only days away from burning at the stake. There had to be at least fifty of the bastards...all of them decked out like knights. Beaten steel the theme in their wardrobe, interlocking plates of it from their boots to their pauldrons to the fingers of their gauntlets. All but one wore a Spanish style helmet too, which cannot have been comfortable, given that all the helmets seemed to have been designed with bulls in mind, and all the knights were wolves except the captain, a lion. All wore the same vest over their armor, an overly ornate design depicting a German Shepherd, presumably St. George, killing a dragon, and the captain wore a red cape to accent it as a sign of his rank. Hell, in retrospect I suppose they were the Knights Templar...Paladins to the man. It would've taken that many to do what they did, because no sooner had I opened my eyes than I felt an inability to so much as twitch an eyelid. Courtesy of the captain, as I was later informed. Ingrateful bastard never did tell them where he learned all of his tricks. He was a different story altogether; his armor was clearly designed, beaten, trimmed and polished for him and him alone, and he wore no helmet on his head, apparently preferring to let his mane show in all its false glory. Dartien Ti'Egdelle, son of a wealthy merchant nearby, and every bit as regal as his brother was humble. Just to clarify that, his brother had been sleeping in my arms for the last fourteen years, and had just the night before agreed to be my mate. "Good morrow Aith, Nitsuj. Don't bother getting up," he said, indicating myself and his brother in turn. "I can see you're busy, so I'll make this brief. His Holiness has decreed that desiring to lay with one who is as you are is beyond reprehensible and is now punishable by death. You can imagine this leaves you in a difficult situation as you both are males, and here you are laying with one another by choice. "Since this is clearly the case I have no choice but to take the both of you to be tried and executed. There you will be detained in seperate cells below the monastery while the inquisitors arrive, and I'm told they're several days out so you may be there a while. "Once they've obtained a confesion out of each of you and a list of fellow abominations you will be executed in the town square by burning at the stake, but probably not before being castrated," he finished in an obscenely matter-of-fact tone, wearing a smug grin that I would've knocked off his face if I could budge an inch. And that's if he'd caught me on a good day. He practically strutted across the room to seat himself on the bed both Nitsuj and I were facing. "Now, since I have your attention I'm going to tell you what your lives are going to be like until you face The Almighty after your execution." He leaned forward with this and rested his right paw on the ornamental swept-hilt rapier he carried at his right hip. "You see, his Holiness knows that you are a sorcerer, and has taken the precaution of asking the Father above to remove your ability to command those foul arts. Nevertheless you will both be gagged and blindfolded while you are led to your new homes, and to further deter any thoughts of escape for the two of you, if one of you somehow manages to get past his guards, which there will be two of each, one with a guisarme and one with a crossbow armed with a single bolt, the other will be killed immediately. "You, my dear Aith, will also have a priest constantly with you to keep the Lord aware of your foul perversions. Within three days you will be gagged and blindfolded once more, and brought before His Holiness himself to be excommunicated, at which point you will be retured to your cells again. Within the week you will both be before God himself, where he will set your final punishment." Once he finished his monologue he stood and sauntered over to his troops, where he turned once more to us. "Now, I will allow you to speak your minds freely as one last favor to my brother before my men will begin the last week of your lives." I felt it in my gut more than anything, and knew by instinct that he had been using a Mute spell, probably the same damn one I taught him years earlier. Before I could comment on it however, Nitsuj spoke up, his first sentence nothing more than a whisper, and meant for my ears only, the rest in a meek, but firm tone. I'll never forget his words despite my best efforts to drown them out of my memory. "It looks like we'll never be able to consummate our love in this life, but I promise I'll be waiting for you in Paradise if you'll promise not to fall into your old ways. "Brave of you, Dartien, to paralyze your own brother using magic his mate taught you. If not for the oath he gave me not to kill, you would probably be seeing for yourself what the Heavenly Father thought on this matter. I myself have no doubt that I am, and always have been, ready to enter the Kingdom of God; can you say the same? I have lived a full life, knowing all the spiritual pleasures one can know, so I can leave this place without regret and without fear; can you? "I am certain that even though I will be excommunicated and executed, the Knower of All Things will disregard even His Holiness saying we are wicked. I will not, however, plead for my life, or pray for my salvation on this plane. I will not bow my head in shame or feel guilt for what I have and have not done. My only prayers will be that, before you leave this world, you see the mistake you have made this day and truly ask for His forgiveness." I was crying before the end of it, my tears dampening the mane my then leonine head was resting on. No one else saw it, or seemed to anyway, and Dartien snorted once before saying "A waste of breath, as I expected. And your last words to those present Aith?" I bit my tongue, literally, to keep myself from yelling at him. Instead I too whispered a message meant for only my mate, my love's ears before addressing the other lion. "I swear to you, there will be no more blood on my paws. "Dartien, do not make the mistake of thinking these my last words to you, for we will speak at great length before you die. Know that a bone will be broken once a day when you wake each morning for as many days as drops of his blood are spilled, for every scream he utters you will go a year deaf. For every bone of his broken you will spend a year blind. If he is killed your fur will all fall out, never to regrow. Think of these not as idle threats, but as a series of promises that I will not break, and as punishmets your life will be extended to endure if need be." I finished in a cold, level, matter-of-fact tone that left the room silent as a grave. The stench of fear was heavy on them, heavy enough that I could tell it even then, and in a lion's body. At least four of the knights, full grown men, smelled to have pissed the inside of their armor, and one made a ward against the evil eye as he crossed himself. The only reason I didn't smile inwardly was that I also heard one of the other monks faint. It was about then that he knocked me out, again using a spell I taught the ungrateful bastard. * * * Apparently he was very very pissed when he cast the spell, 'cause I woke up five days later with a splitting headache, and no priest to guard me. The cell I was in was dank, to say the least, and the mildew creeping up the walls looked like it could've eaten a furre alive. The walls themselves were stone blocks about a foot tall and two wide each, the kind they used to make castles out of in days gone by, and the bars were cast-iron before they'd developed a coat of rust. My first instinct was to test them before I remembered Dartien's warning against escaping...So I had to rely on my second instinct, which came in the form of a practical assault on my mind across the link I still shared with Aerotan, Nitsuj and the Conclave. ++AITH! Wherehaveyoubeen?Iwasworriedsick!Whyhaven'tyoutriedtorespond!?++ I scowled in pain from both my previous headache and the onslaught of babble coming in from my brother, presumably still in what would eventually become this village, a continent or two over from where I was. He was probably thinking in English again by then really, since he'd been in this bloody place for over thirty years. This might probably be a good place to mention that I'd been speaking in latin for roughly a century before that day, and still spoke it until...well, I'll get to that in a little bit. At any rate my response was less than eloquent. ++Slow down!I'm in a cell below the monastery, and not one of the better kept ones by the look of things. I've been out cold since probably the morning after the last time I contacted you, courtesy of Dartien. They've had my magic blocked, and probably will again soon. I think Nitsuj's life might be in serious danger...++ ++...Try to hold on for another day or two...I...%%grim determination%% there's something I have to do before I can help you...++ was his cryptic reply, sent several minutes later. Judging by both the timing and the feelings that were leaking through, whatever it was he had to do he had to think hard about it. I didn't have time to ask him about it though before I heard a door open in the corridor beyond my cell. The sound of reinforced boots echoed off the walls as the owners approached my cell. I padded across the cell silently and stooped in a corner adjacent to the bars to give myself a better view when the four guards rounded the corner. These were the normal town guardsman, wearing much lighter armor than the group that had captured me. Their armor was composed mostly of leather, with steel plates protecting a few of the more vulnerable areas, but unlike the Knights, who wore white cotton surcoats with red trim over their otherwise white armor, these guards wore highly emlbazoned brigandines, or leather coats with steel plates riveted to the inside. They also all wore steel caps that again looked to be spanish in origin, though oddly theirs seemed to be made for them rather than "borrowed". I briefly wondered who they were guarding when I caught sight of a crimson robe with black trim. Wearing this robe, hood open for the world to see it's wearer, someone I thought long dead. He was a wolf, much like I am now actually, with snowy white fur that was striped randomly with a blood red color, making him look like some sort of odd tiger-wolf hybrid. His eyes were an amber color, a holdover from his true form, and there was a chunk missing from his left ear, as if it had been bitten out. One would think that after forty-something odd centuries he'd have regrown that by now, but he kept it as sort of a reminder to himself to hate my guts... I scowled silently and sent one last message to Aerotan before they had time to realize I was awake. ++Cynder is here. In an inquisitor's robe no less.++ To say that Cynder and I had a history would be like saying Hitler and Winston Churchill liked to drop firecrackers on each other. He was one of Pyer's lackeys almost from the day he slithered out of his egg. Nobody but him and the Red Dragon knew what species he really was, but it was common knowledge he was a hybrid of gold dragon and something else. I had figured there was enough "something else" to see him long dead by then. Apparently I was wrong. He paused in his stride after I fired off the message, and I quickly feigned sleep again. He turned toward my cell and scowled so hard at me I could feel the heat. After what seemed like hours of him scrutinizing my leonine form, now stark naked and rather good looking despite the conditions, he turned to the guards and asked. "¿Usted esté seguro que él es un león, si?" The guards looked at each other and me quizzically, before one of them spoke up "Pues, si no es, él está haciendo un buen trabajo que lo parece, Padre." "Cómico, me dijeron que él es un hechicero. ¿Es usted seguro que esto es su forma verdadera?" "Padre, él era un león por todo el tiempo que cualquier en Roma puede recordar." Another answered him. I assumed it was spanish, but I didn't understand a word of it. "¿Muy bien, dónde está el otro?" With this the guards moved further down the hall, with Cynder presumably following them. Once their footsteps were nothing but an echo I slowly opened one eye, then stood up and started pacing. Cynder being there only meant bad; the half-breed delighted in making others suffer. Sometimes I wonder if he ever smiled without hearing someone scream. To my very unpleasant surprise he returned a few minutes later, padding up to my cell so silently I remained unaware of his presence until he cleared his throat noisily behind me. I whirled and yelped in shock. "\I was wondering where you'd gotten to, bastard.//" He said in a tone that suggested boredom. Or maybe his tone was different and it was just his face that was bored. "\Shouldn't you be dead halfbreed?//" I asked in a threatening tone. "\Hardly. This is a bonus though. I come here to torture a confession or two out of a pair of faggots and I find that it's the pair of whelps I've been dying to kill for ages. Literally.//" "\Guess again puppet, you only found me, Aerotan is off playing daddy in the Americas.//" "\Pity, I'll just have to track him down later. Odd that you didn't deny his faggotry.//" I rolled my eyes at this and repeated "\'...playing daddy.' You never were the sharpest sword on the rack, were you? Especially to be using such an offensive term four feet from someone who could end your existance with just a few words and a gesture.//" He laughed once, a mirthless laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. "\You think I'd be back here if I hadn't already locked your precious magic down? Speaking of racks though I must get back to your apparently mortal faggot of a mate.//" He said, emphasizing the word to be sure I heard it. "\Cynder.//" I called as he turned to walk away. "\Hmm?//" He asked over his shoulder without turning back. "\Ask the captain of the guard what I told him, multiply it by ten, and apply it to yourself as well.//" I said before retreating to a corner of my cell and seating myself there. He remained where he was for several seconds before stalking off. * * * ..they tortured the both of us for three days, before I asked Dartien with smug satisfaction what day it was, given that it put us outside of his promised week I confessed to everything they wanted me to. Everyone there knew I was doing it for spite, and knew that I could probably have lasted months if I cared to," I say, with a self-satisfied grin to rival your own. "The rest of the week went as expected, Nitsuj and I were officially Excommunicated, and led into the center of town three days later. I still didn't have my magic back, which had me very, VERY worried... * * * ..We were chained to an iron pole in the middle of the square. Piled around this pole was at least a house worth of wood, and about a gallon of pitch. They wanted us DEAD for some reason...and I got the distinct feeling it was me. After they checked the padlock to make sure we weren't going anywhere the pope himself got up on a balcony overlooking the square and started a speech about how we were sinners being cleansed from the land or some such. I wasn't paying attention, I was too busy trying to undo the bind on my magic. All I ever managed that day was to make a gap in the defenses just large enough to send a telepathic link to Nitsuj. And we spent the entire speech comforting each other and saying our goodbyes... At the end of the speech the tawny owl who had been delivering it was handed a bow and an arrow that I knew held no tip, and was instead wrapped with a cloth soaked in wine. A ferret came forward with a torch and the arrow was lit. Seconds later it lit the first of the bonfire we were to become. It took less than a minute for the whole pile to be burning, and for the first time in my life I was afraid of fire...The flames started on Nitsuj first, causing him to scream in pain as they charred his flesh, spreading along his fur like only fire can. It lapped and licked at me, but never actually took. Chalk one up for natural resistances I guess...Even they wouldn't have been enough, except that the exact moment my fur started to burn off, the flames all simply extinguished themselves and the iron chain cooled from white-hot to black in seconds. The crowd was silent, none of them understanding exactly what had happened. I was sobbing for the loss of Nitsuj, now nothing more than cinders and ash behind me. Dartien was watching in horror as a pearl dragon peeked its head over the buildings behind me. Aerotan was screaming at me in my head, but I didn't register any of it. It had to be an hour or more later when I recovered my senses to find Aerotan standing guard over me, having snapped the chains and switched to a sleek ghost jaguar form.He was lean and trim and, unlike most jaguars, his pelt was a creamy white and his rosettes, all shaped subtly like hearts with sunburst spots inside them, weren't too many shades darker. I was a bit awestruck and more than a bit aroused at the sight, and probably the only thing keeping that arousal from showing was the memory, the echos, of Nitsuj's howls and roars of agony as he was burned alive. I stood slowly and shook my head, my mane falling in a chaotic mess around my head as I walked over to Cynder, glaring the whole way. Aerotan said something behind me, I'm not sure what, but I ignored him. My goal was Cynder, and I was close to taking his head off with my bare hands by the time I reached him. Instead I punched him so hard and so fast I heard his jaw shatter under the blow. Aside from making me feel better it also obliterated even the miniscule iota of concentration neccesary to keep my magic locked away. I siezed the opprotunity and immediately bound his. I turned away and started toward Dartien, who tried to run only to find himself paralyzed after his first step. I drew myself level with him, snarling fiercely. Even before I said a word I smelled the distinct scent of fear, and at the sound of my voice the sharp odor of urine joined it. "Dartien! I warned you not to hurt him. I told you years ago to leave us be. You failed in that respect. I promised you, just before you took us, a punishment. The final count, by a tracker spell I've had on the both of you for as long as I've been with him, was four-thousand seven hundred drops of blood, ninety-one screams, two hundred seventeen broken bones, and one death. I hope you like long life, because you're in for two hundred or more years of it, blind and deaf for most of it. I hope it was worth it, just to see your brother dead." His fur started to fall out in clumps as I returned to Cynder. "You, however, are in for two millenia of blindness, nine hundred years of deafness, and better than three thousand without fur or scales. Unlike him, at the end of this span of time, you'll see me again. Don't forget my name now, because you just changed it." I turned and leapt onto the balcony the pope was still on, causing him to faint. "Weakling." I practically spat at him before turning to the crowd who had been too afraid to move lest Aerotan kill them. I'm not sure he wouldn't have, he was glaring murder at them. I took several minutes to order my thoughts before speaking, adressing the entire crowd in a tone and volume loud enough that furres inside buildings for a block could've heard me. "I came here twenty years ago seeking peace, seeking an end to the bloodshed that had been my life up until that point. Four years after I arrived I was referred to the lion you just killed to confess my transgressions before God. Before the end of it we both had a pretty good idea that we were going to be with one another for a long time. "Fourteen years I spent with him officially, never once breaking any Vatican or Roman laws. Fourteen years of being together, and not once did we consumate our relationship, since His Holiness had decreed that lying with another man was a sin. How many of you can honestly attest to being with your loved ones for fourteen years without making love? And for what?! To get ourselves killed when His Holiness decides that merely wanting to be with another male is heresy?! And without enough advanced warning of this decision for us to consider leaving the city so that you would not have to deal with us?! "I am well over eight thousand years old, and in all that time I have cared for only two persons in the way I cared for him. And you took him away because of it! You have no idea how fortunate you all are that I promised him not to kill again, and I intend to keep my word, but think on this: "You just killed a former priest, a man of God, who came closer to obeying His will than any of you can attest to. You all cheered at every cry of agony he let out, and applauded once they ceased, waiting for mine to to start. There have been others burned in his lifetime, and he never attended a single one. Instead he spent those days fasting and praying for their everlasting souls. "Who is the Pope to say that he will not enter heaven? Or that you will simply because you confess your sins, only to repeat them as soon as the opprotunity arises? You saught to kill Aith Sa'Pyer and Nitsuj Ti'Egdelle. You only managed one of the two. From this day forward, let it be known that Aith is no more, his blood is on your paws, but that Nitsuj Ti'Egdelle will live on, carrying his mate's memory but never again knowing the feel of his beloved in his arms." I was in tears again by this point, but I added quietly and sent across the link to a very confused Aerotan, "And praying that may I be half the man he was." I took off without another word, leaping into the sky and changing to my natural form, my leonine body fading out of existance to be replaced by a two hundred foot long mass of shimmering scales covering lithe muscle from my twin-horned head to the tip of my ridged tail. I spread my fifty yard wingpan and caught a promising thermal to get my height to well above a thousand feet before I took off toward nowhere in particular. I needed to get away, and away was where I was getting. * * * It was almost dawn by the time I landed on a ledge I felt would hold me, though I'm pretty sure I'd changed timezones several times since then. Aerotan was only a few seconds behind me and opted to change back into his previous jaguar form and stay with me rather than fly around for hours to find a place to land. ++Aith..?++ He asked hesitantly over the link. ++Aith is dead!++ I snapped back, sorrow and pain tainting my message even in my thoughts. ++...Nitsuj, are you...?++ he started, putting a paw on my withers ++Leave me be!++ I snapped again as I changed into a jaguar form of my own, mine was decidedly more normal looking than Aerotan's slim form, despite our builds matching exactly. From the tips of his ears, resting six feet off the ground atop the rounded shape of his face, which was now drawn into a concerned look, to his lean-but-defined muscles, a trick we had learned very early in our shapeshifting careers that gave us an uncanny strength that was well within the reach of anyone that managed to accomplish them without having us stick out in a crowd, which is something we learned early on not to do. Hell, even though it was hidden by his exposed sheath I was more than willing to bet at the time that even our cocks were the same. The only differences between us now was our coloration and spot patterns. His pelt being a creamy white with his light grey rosettes subtly heart-shaped, and the spots within them sunburst-patterned, while mine was, as I said, normal. My pelt was a rich gold-color, and my rosettes a healthy black, the spots within them a dark brown rather than matching the surrounding colors. I stalked to the other end of the stone ledge and sat against the face of the cliff it jutted out of, hugging my knees close to myself and wrapping my tail around my digitigrade pawfeet. I lay my head down so that my tears ran down my arms and then legs rather than my cheeks and sent a message to Aerotan across the link, keeping the ledge silent save my occasional sob. ++He's gone...++ He was silent for several minutes, to this day I'm not sure if he was reading my thoughts as I reflected on what I'd lost that day, or if it was just some fraternal instinct that made him wait until I had covered every moment of my life with Nitsuj from the day I met him as nothing more than a priest-in-training, until that last night we'd shared together, when he finally let me go as far as to kiss him. Either way Aerotan's next message was hesitant, as if he didn't want to interrupt my thoughts. ++...He...he really meant a lot to you, didn't he?++ He asked, having at some point seated himself in front of me, resting on his knees and toes in a perfect image of calmness and patience. I looked up to see him sitting there, waiting for me to sort out my mind, and probably willing to wait long enough for me to sort out my very soul if need be. I nodded silently, for once in my life not ashamed of tears I was shedding in his presence, and not ashamed of why I was crying them. "\I'm sorry...//" He said aloud, the first words either of us had physically said to one another in over half a century, and his voice was light and smooth and seductive, even as filled with sorrow and pain as it was at that moment. Apparently more had changed with him than I had realized. "\I know what it is like to lose one you care about...one you love...I know the pain of not being able to do anything to save them, despite being less than a yard away...//" I shook my head slowly, a little angry once more that he was comparing my loss to his. This might be a good time to mention why he had lived here to begin with... * * * "See, back when we were both greedy wyrms, about the time I had decided to take up residence in Rome, Aerotan decided to try his luck in the Americas. Within a decade or two, after establishing a decent hoard somewhere around here, he met this woman, a cougar if memory serves, named Alicia or Alice or something, I'm not sure what it was. I hated the bitch with a passion from day one and the feeling was mutual. 'Course, I hated her because she was taking Aerotan away from me in my mind, and she hated me because I made no attempt to disguise my preference for males, and Aerotan in particular, though he never really picked up on that fact, probably becausewe had always been together, so he just thought of it as me being me, not being interested in him...but I digress." I say with a bit of a blush as I realize three things. First that I'm rambling for some reason. Second that my story is about to broach some very personal topics. And third that looking into your eyes, or admiring your toned chest, or focusing on your exposed and rather nice sheath makes me so that I don't care about either. "Anyway long story short he really liked this girl and decided to make her his wife. He was very clear that she was his wife, even though I, and later he, always insisted on the difference between mates and married couples, so I can assume he never really loved her. "Through some miracle he was able to get himself off with her, as sub-bottom as he is, since they eventually had a kid. It was a half-breed who I never learned the name of. Interestingly enough apparently our shapeshifting doesn't affect our genetics, because the kid was born with scales and a nice pair of wings from descriptions I'd heard of him. He also inherited a greedy streak wider than most oceans. "Anyway apparntly Aerotan had never told what's-her-face that he was really a dragon, so she was, understandably, pissed. They ended up divorcing and she ended up getting run over by a coach. He hadn't learned Ressurective spells by that point, so she stayed dead. I think only duty would've made him do it anyway. I never did learn what became of the kid though...I know he lived a long time, and Aerotan mentioned once that he never had kids, so I assumed he died. Knowing Aerotan and his habits he died peacefully in his sleep at fifteen times the age he should have." * * * "\Suthrain, my losing Nitsuj is not like the death of your once-wife. You and she had split, and the both of us know you did not care for her as I cared for him.//" "\Just how much did you care for him, Dominus?//" He asked, clearly dodging the subject, but doing so in such an artful way that I couldn't help but to let him. I was silent for several moments as I framed a response in my mind. Had I spoken immediately the language's rules coupled with the fact that he used my name would've forced me to as much as confess my love for him then, and given that I had only just tried to hurt him with my words, that may not have ended as well as it did. After carefully considering several answers I arrived at the one least likely to drive him away. "\He was my life...he was the wind in my wings, the sun in my blood...I would have gladly accepted death had it allowed him life...//" "\How did you keep that innocent?//" He asked me almost immediately. "\He wanted it to be, so it was...he wanted it to be pure...to be sacred...to him that meant it had to stay chaste...and so it was...//" "\Where did you find the self restraint for that?//" "\In him...he was my example...just the thought of him being dissapointed with me kept me from doing a lot of things...//" "\Including killing his brother and Cynder?//" "\Especially that. He helped me see that killing is...well it is not really a valid punishment...that only higher powers can determine when a person is to die...that it is never my decision to make.//" "\So you extended Dartien's life well beyond what he would be alotted to?//" "\Suthrain,question me not on this matter, it does not help my mood.//" I said with an edge to my voice that really needn't have been there. It kept him quiet for several more minutes while he mulled over my responses, or so I thought. After a few moments more of silence he spoke again, hesitantly and with a curious tone that would have made his question seem valid even if it were in english. "\Had he allowed it to become more intimate...how would...? I mean, how do two males...?//" "\Mate?//" I finished for him, the dumbfounded expression on my face the only indication that I might not be prepared to answer the question. He looked away quickly with a blush that turned his fur pink as he nodded once. Taking this as a sign to continue, and because I really didn't know how else to handle the situation I thought for a moment before scrunching myself up a little more to make absolutely sure he couldn't see that I was becoming quickly aroused by just the thought of explaining things to him. "\Well, //" I began, "\there are lots of ways to start it off, but I think the best way is with a kiss. After that you'd usually spend time making sure the both of you, especially the one topping, were hard and ready to go...Before humans went extinct they often made lubricants that would probably be useful, but current technology isn't quite there yet, so the next thing will almost always be for the guy taking the other, the bottom, to slick down the top's cock with saliva. "\If the bottom is particularily gifted and can cum several times within a short time-frame then I guess you could also use some of that...Really though once things get going the top's precum is usually enough to keep things smooth. After the cocks are properly slicked and stiff it can go one or two ways, unless one of the two is a feline or equine or decidedly larger than the other. "\If none of those apply the two could dock each other, that is mate one another's sheaths, or go straight to what most classify as the only male to male sex there is, by the top entering the bottom's tailhole and mating him like that...Usually they would continue humping until they both cum, provided that was the intention. With canines and felines there are differences in the cock that tend to keep them locked inside their partner for long periods of time...especially with canines. "\Felines and Equines can't dock, by the way, because of the barbs and the flare at the end of their respective cocks...//" I finish my explanation purplexed, but strangely exhilerated, and so aroused I was leaking small amounts of pre on my thighs. "\You put your penis in someone else's tailhole?! Doesn't that hurt?//" he asked, his eyes wide in wonder and surprise. He had never been the least naive being on the planet, but I found it rather cute at the time...like when we were whelps in training with the Con-nevermind that. Anyway by this point I was speaking a little easier, most of my nervousness gone. "\Well, the first few times can, and any time you take something bigger than you are used to, but you get to the point, usually within the first time you are mated, where the pain is quite ignorable, and then all you're left with are the pleasurable feelings of a nice, thick, long, hard cock thrusting in and out of you... "\Not all like them, but most gay furs do, and many straight ones. You see, there are certain organs within most male bodies that are usually easily reached through the tailhole that feel really good when rubbed, poked, or otherwise stimulated.//" * * * By this point I am thankful for the sheet I have wrapped around me, because it's hiding an erection so hard it hurts, and for some reason I can feel the beginnings of a knot, something I never actually bothered with adding to my lupine penis, forming of its own accord. I make a quick check of your crotch, the sheath swelling a little but still hiding its contents well despite the scent of your arousal being strong enough to overpower the other scents in the room, before continuing my tale. * * * He turned away from me and said with no small amount of wonder in his voice. "\It sounds like you truly have found something you enjoy aside from wealth then...//" I looked at him quizzically and asked "\Why do you wish to know these things? I thought you were straight.//" "I was...er...am! I think...I just...wanted to know what you liked about it, that's all." He said, using Latin to respond instead of draconic, which set off many alarms in my head anyway. "\Suthrain, tell me true. Are you really still straight?//" I asked, using his name and our birth language to essentially force him to abide my the command and answer truthfully. His answer was typical of him at the time. "\I...am unsure...//" Indecisive. "\What are your thoughts my brother?//" "\I dare not speak them.//" "\Why?//" "\Even if part of them were proper, they are not when taken as a whole.//" "\By whose standards?//" A silent image of a greater red dragon, with the "pinky" talon of his hind paw missing, flashed though my mind before Aerotan stifled it. Apparently my question had alarmed him to the point of forgetting to guard his thoughts. I knew that image well, we both did. I reached out to him slowly, going on all fours to place a paw gently on his shoulder. "\You know none of who we are is by his standards. Why should they be now? Our very existance disgusts him, he's countered us every move we have made, and openly called for us to be killed. For God's sake Cynder has always been one of his lackeys and I don't believe for a second that he was where he was by accident... "\And remember that spell that would've obliterated the both of us with Pierce? Or the time he tried to fly us into an active volcano?//" I had softened considerably at the mental image of Pyer, and let's face it anyone would, but I still count myself fortunate that Aerotan continued to stare away from me as he gently lay his paw on mine and said "\True...all true...maybe we should stop living for him, and start living for us...//" He nodded once and then added in a firm voice "\Very well. Dominus, I want you to...to show me what it is like...I want you to...to mate with me.//" If I had been confused before I was dumbstruck now. Fortunately I was always good at thinking on my paws and quickly hid any startlement he would've seen, had he turned around, by drawing myself close to him and nuzzling his neck from behind as I wrapped my arms around him, crossing them one over the other just under his ribcage. "\I think I could manage that. Which side of things do you want my brother?//" He blushed so furiously I could feel the heat of it coming off of his cheeks, and I had to be very careful not to poke him with my rock-hard length that was already dangerously close to penetrating him. "\I-what I mean is-well...which side of things do you want me to be?//" I smirked as I drew my muzzle back and placed it just behind his right ear. "\Lean forward and I'll show you.//" I said, just barely within his hearing range, quietly and softly enough that it would've been hard to distinguish from a telepathic suggestion. To my infinite amazement he did just as I'd said, and leaned forward till his muzzle rested on the floor and his hindquarters were propped in the air almost obscenely. Then again, considering that my six inch rod was pointing straight at it less than three inches away, I'm not so sure the word 'almost' belongs in there. Instead of plunging into him though I decided to go a gentler route. I leaned down over him so that my muzzle was once again right next to his ear and kissed it gently before saying "\Good, now reach back through your legs and grad my cock, then just hold it for a second.//" As he complied I let my paws move as well, my left holding him across his chest, keeping him close to me, and my right caressing its way down his chest and abdomen, finally coming to a rest on his almost fully erect shaft at almost the exact instant his found my painfully erect one. But while his paw was just holding onto mine, my paw was gently tracing small patterns in his shaft, teasing and playing with it until, predictably, it became just as hard, and almost exactly as long as mine. I kissed his neck again and whispered into his ear, "\You like that, huh? Try it with mine, and add a little of this to it.//" I said in a seductive tone, gripping his barbed cock and stroking it once when I wanted to emphasize words. I could feel every inch of his body shudder when I did, which only served to keep me aroused. Once again he followed my instructions almost immediately, making me temporarily weak-kneed as he started, which in turn only seemed to encourage him, drive him to pick up his pace slowly until he was practically a blur on my shaft. It didn't take long of this treatment before I felt my first orgasm in a decade and a half closing in on me, I pulled my right paw back to brush his tail out of the way, and started thrusting forward into his paw, slowly driving the paw-off to his tailhole. I lost control of myself in a conveniently timed manner and fired several bursts of warm jaguar seed onto his pucker just as the tip reached it. He whined a little under me as I started to smear the seed around with my pawfingers. ++Don't worry, I'm not done yet, and I haven't forgotten your needs.++ I sent to him so that I could catch my ragged breath. It only took a few seconds for me to stiffen up again while I was playing with his tailhole, even after I moved his paw off of my member. As I approached my full hardness and length again I slowly pressed a pawfinger into his tailhole, stopping at the first knuckle to pull back, only to push forward again, going to the second knuckle and once again pulling back out before I pushed it back in. He gritted his teeth and whimpered a little again, so I kept it to one pawfinger for nearly a full minute before adding the second and starting the process all over again. He moaned once, after about three minutes of prepping him with both my index and middle pawfingers, going to the third knuckle, and I took this as my cue that he was ready. I removed my pawfingers slowly, oh-so slowly, and returned the paw they were attatched to to his member, which I gripped fully to help take his mind off of what happened next. I crept up slowly and positioned my member at his pucker, still tight despite the pawfinger-fucking he'd just been on the recieving end of, and pressed myself into his warm, smooth hole as I began to stroke him off. He took in a shuddering breath as I slowly hilted him, where I paused for a moment to let him get used to the feel of me. He tapped my shin twice as a go-ahead before I started pulling out just as slowly as I'd gone in and slowed my strokes on his false jaguarhood to match the deliberately, maddeningly slow pace I was mating him to. Unlike the pawing off, which was just to lube him up, I wanted this to last a long time, and a long time it lasted with me slowly pressing myself in, then pulling out just as slowly, never altering my pace or making an effort to control my breathing. We stayed on that ledge for nearly an hour mating in that unbelievably slow dance before I felt his member twitch in my paw, apparently having taken as much teasing as it could before it released several strong spurts of creamy, thick, hot seed onto his chest, then the ground, and finally into my paw, which never stopped its slow pace. His orgasm sent pulses and twitches up my own cock, causing the barbs to harned to points after the excruciatingly long teasing before I too fired another series of spurts into his bowels. Remarkably my orgasm was no noisier than the rest of our lovemaking, and aside from a shortness of breath caused by our respective orgasms, neither of us was tired. I leaned back and brought him with me, pulling the both of us into a sitting position while my barbs softened inside of him. "\Th-that...was incredible...//" He said between deep breaths. I nodded, nuzzling into his neckfur at the same time and said "\You have no idea how long I've wanted this...I wanted to make the moment last, make it so that neither of us could ever forget it even if we ended up mating so many times all the rest are a blur...//" "\Mission succesfull, I think. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget this...//" "\That is a good thing?//" I asked with just a hint of hesitation and fear in my voice. Instead of answering immediately he turned around on my still hard shaft and kissed me, wrapping his arms around me tightly enough to drive what breath I had gasped in right back out as he sent a telepathic message. ++A very good thing, my brother, Nitsuj, is it now?++ ++Aye, that it is.++ * * * ..We fell asleep with me still in him, and took off the next morning for Elba island, where we stayed for a number of years, sharing each other's beds whenever we could get away with it. We both got exceedingly good at telling what the other wanted or needed each night, to the point that I could've rattled off a list of his kicks in my sleep if I hadn't seen him for a year. And be right on the money." I boast, simply to get an amused reaction out of you, which you provide almost immediately. I'm beginning to wonder about just how aware you are of the role you're assuming around me, but rather than ask about it I simply say "Does that answer your question, or do you need more?" * * *

Author's Notes: There, longer, you happy now? As an author I love comments, by the way, I promise not to bite hard if I dun like them, and if I don't get them I'm likely to assume nobody's reading them and quit writing... A/N 2: I edited the story to be more readable on a suggestion from a very good friend of mine, and I'm serious about comments...hell I'll take beratements at this point, just someone notice me please T.T