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Anthro Sex Squad Story 3 - Oaky's Story

By Killenor

Arc 1 - Origins

Chapter 1

Me? Why would you bother wanting to know who I was? My story really only got interesting a few years ago.

Oh very well, I suppose if you insist I'll tell you why I am what I am. Maybe then you can appreciate me better and maybe you'll want to hear something current. My childhood, I'll leave that out because it was typical of we civil-toads. Just hatch in a big pond, swim about, and we see who walks out alive, just like all the feral and domestic toads do. Barbaric you say? Not a bit of it. If you are going to live on land as a toad, you had better be ready to walk I say. But no, the part I'm going to start with happened just after I came of age. I remember it was the first spring that I caught the whiff of females...

Oaky clambered up on to the mating stump, a massive tree that had been felled in ancient times, well over a hundred years ago some of the sages said, and had served as a place of gathering ever since. Dozens of toad-folk had gathered there. Those too old for mating took to selling wares to aid in the event, while the young, some with their tails still fading, watched the spectacle as a sort of game. New siblings would come of this, they knew, and one day they would join their peers for mating. The many snags and shoots that grew from the stump were being dressed with clothes and ribbons from the twenty-one toads that would participate this day. The ritual was time-honored and sacred, the females would linger about the edges and entice the males as they made their displays. The females would decide which male they would pair with based on their displays. With further encouragement, the displays would become more intense and even threatening. The first male to reach a female won the rights to mate with her. They would run off then, securing his lineage and consummating their union in the sacred pond. After this, the rest got their chance.

This year, however, was to be different. This time, there would be an odd-male-out and no one wanted to be that male. This year, all notion of discipline would be discarded.

The displays began in time to music, each male sounded out against the beat and the simple melodies and flashed his colors toward the females. They responded by removing the first of their veils, enticing the males with their lovely legs, firm poison-sacs, and bumps like constellations upon their faces. The males flashed more, emphasizing the girth of their bellies, the length of their tongues, the strength of their arms, and the power of their legs. The females, in response, teasingly removed all but one of the ribbons that hid their bodies, reveling creamy smooth chests, throats, thighs and forearms. They threw these ribbons at the males, driving them forward to catch them. Many females attempted to make the catching difficult and threw the ribbons high and low, goading the males to perform feats of acrobatics and speed. A dropped ribbon stayed on the ground, completely worthless in the golden eyes of the females. Only the winners would get to advance. In a flurry of motion, the females were down to the last ribbon they wore, that which rested over their right shoulders and ran down their bodies, between their bare thighs.

A true frenzy erupted then, the males displayed their hardest, emphasizing all their best traits and all their hard-won ribbons. No satisfaction would come to one, they knew, and now they had to be chosen. They moved in a blur of motion that challenged the females to pick out the best ones. The knots were undone and the females made to remove their last ribbon. In a swish and blur of color the ribbons came away, swirling through the air and lashing out, hoping to ensnare the best male in the pack. As soon as a female had a male, they leaped off the stump and made immediately for the sacred pond.

It took only a minute of fearsome motion to clear the stump, leaving one toad alone, clutching but a single ribbon in his smooth hand. Oaky's shoulders slumped in total defeat as he watched the last of the males, trailing yellow and blue ribbons, hopped away with a female, holding onto the red ribbon she had wrapped about his forearm.

The party had dispersed and even the last of the lingerers had left. Oaky still sat upon the stump. The fabrics and ribbons had been picked off of the snags and it was once again bare. After only a half hour, it was yet again just a huge, bare stump. Oaky sulked, wondering why it hadn't been him. What could have been wrong with his display, why he had caught only a single ribbon?

The sun had just begun to set, casting colors about the forest. Normally this was his favorite time of day, but it was all ignored by Oaky, he was too busy to be bothered with it. His mind sat transfixed on the thought of all his peers fathering offspring at this very moment with some of the very loveliest of females he had ever witnessed. His cloaca ached with arousal at the remembrances of the scintillating display of skin, patterns, bumps, and curves.

"Hey, Oaky," came a voice behind him, "I thought I'd find you here. So, struck out eh?"

Oaky turned to regard the young toad that had crawled up to sit beside him.

"What's it to you Ripple? There just weren't enough females this year. Waters were too warm I think." Oaky said, trying to sound casual. Ripple was a female, a whole year younger than he was. She hadn't quite fully filled out yet but she was still a bright person. Unfortunately, she had this habit of showing up exactly when Oaky didn't want her to and she never failed to make him feel worse about himself.

"Ooh, you and your waters," Ripple said teasingly, "The elders have never linked temperature with the number of males and females born. They say it's just chance and fate. Besides... we were short one female this year. It's not like the waters are to blame for that. You're just listening to that one old toad again."

"Grubber the pond-watcher" Oaky said tersely

"But did you see those males today? Wow! they sure made you look pathetic. Especially that big one, Russula? Yeah that's him. I wish MY mate could be like that next year!"

Oaky stared hard away from the stump, annoyance flaring within him. "Yeah, Ripple... that makes me feel really hatchin' great. Why don't you make yourself useful and tell me what I did wrong."

"Wrong?" Ripple said, "You didn't do anything wrong that I could see. You're just... well... ugly."

Oaky might well have been struck by a log then. Ugly? Was he really?

"How am I ugly?" he said, turning round to stare at Ripple. She shrank back at the power of the question. For the first time, she considered, she may have gone too far.

"Um... well, your pattern... and your bumps... and your colors." She started, growing in confidence, "They just aren't what females are looking for. Your bumps don't look like anything. Your colors are off. Your voice isn't right. It's just not attractive."

"Why in the boiling hells didn't someone tell me this BEFORE I got on the hatchin' stump!" Oaky yelled. "I could have saved us ALL the stress and just jumped down some feral-wolf's throat!"

"Well... there is another way." Ripple said feeling a little scared at Oaky's sudden rage, "A female secret."

Oaky stared at her, was she toying with him? Was this going to be like that time she had conned him into getting that bee's nest? It was lucky he already HAD bumps at that point. Could there really be some secret that would get him a female?

"Alright. What is it?" Oaky said in a disbelieving tone.

"Well," Ripple began, shifting her posture to give the impression that she had some juicy gossip, "Some of the other females were talking before. You know Flax and Lumina? They said that Birch offered them things if they would mate with him. Other females choose before the stump too if the males can give them something. Also I know that sometimes friends choose to mate with each other beforehand just because they're friends."

Oaky was amazed. None of the elders ever talked about such things. What a secret this was! He might not have to live alone after all! If he could only entice a female in some way, it would guarantee him a mate next year. Even then, a thought occurred...

"Ripple?" Oaky started.

"No WAY!" Ripple shot back, dashing Oaky's feeble hopes, "I've got my sights set on Myco!"

"Myco!!!" Oaky shouted, "His face looks like a sneeze! He's scrawny and useless! I mean at least I know my plants and animals. I could provide for you. I am an alert and attentive male! I'm even apprenticing under Grubber the pond watcher! I'm going to be the new shaman! What could Myco possibly have to offer over me?"

Ripple reached into one of her pockets and fished out a necklace. It was fine, golden, and set with tiny sparkling jewels. Oaky's eyes shrank, only the eldest and powerful of toad-folk ever had jewelry!

"H-how... how did Myco..." Oaky stuttered, jumping to his feet.

"I didn't ask, but isn't it beautiful? It's real gold... and jewels! I just have to mate with him after this!" Ripple said, gazing into the sparkling stones. "I just have to."

Oaky slumped his shoulders, totally defeated, and trod himself back toward the settlement.

***

Grubber, the pond watcher, looked up from the mass of roots he had been studying. He felt the currents of nature flowing through him as he placed his smooth hand upon the bark of the ancient tree. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the life within, the slow, chimeric mind of the tree, every insect that lived within, the fungus, the worms busy beneath the soil as they brushed root. He reached in, weaving his own magic with that of the will of the world. Probing, he felt for the source of the problem. The will of life poured from him, into the trunk of the tree, and found it. He pulled, the tissue of the wood pulling aside at the force of the shaman's will.

Finally it emerged, the object that did not belong. The tree trunk knitted itself together again as the pond-watcher's hand retracted, clutching a rusted piece of metal that had once been an arrowhead. The slow, ancient minds of the tree oozed relief at the removal of the offending object.

Satisfied that the tree was no longer unnecessarily stressed, Grubber turned his mind to the arrowhead. The metal was long corroded, but his magic had extracted all of it, down to the last speck. Expanding his mind he reached into the memory of the metal, recalling it as it once was. The rusted hunk in his hand began to glow as he muttered to himself, drawing on the forces of nature. Flames erupted all about the arrowhead as the corruption of the air removed itself.

At last, Grubber opened his eyes. The piece of metal he held was now as shiny, sharp, and new as the day it took shape in some forge somewhere. Forty years, it told him, before the toad-folk tribe had migrated to this area. Pocketing the arrowhead, Grubber moved on, seeking troubles in the forest that he could cure.