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Locker rooms all look the same, after a while. Harriet would know, she'd been in a lot of them through her career. Rugby wasn't quite as high-profile as football or hockey or basketball, but it still got asses in seats, and that had been enough to get her a scholarship to Central Boston Institute. Three years there, so far, and with travel games she'd been across the country, in more locker rooms than she could count.

They all looked the same, but some of them smelled better than others, and this one smelled like home.

Practice had been rough tonight. Several of the more experienced players were graduating soon, and new blood had to be worked into shape to pick up the slack. All well and good, but that meant longer hours, and less time for studying. And less time for studying meant potential difficulty in actually staying eligible for sports. Keep the grade average up, or risk not being able to play.

"Nothing to do but shoulder the load," she murmured, dressing after the shower was done. Academic scholarship dress codes, it was either skirts or suits, and she'd be damned if she wore a dress. So finding a suit that played well with lynx markings had been a high priority, and also kind of difficult. After a half dozen attempts that ranged from passable to atrocious, one of her teammates had suggested a trip to the art building, a visit to one of the fashion design classes.

Which had been a good idea, and she'd thanked Martha for sending her that way. And she'd privately cursed Martha, too, for getting her all tangled up like this. Of course the subject she was struggling with was English Lit. Of course the best person to help her with it would be Sierra. It didn't help that her brain threatened to leak out her ears when the woman was anywhere near her, but she knew what she was doing, and could explain Chaucer as easily as she could alter a neckline.

[Hey Sierra, I need some help with an assignment. Can you find an hour to help me figure out-]

No, that wouldn't be right. Harriet deleted the unsent message. She shouldn't just impose on the other woman. She had her own deadlines and pressures. It wasn't fair to just take up her time, there ought to be a fair exchange. If she was going to take up Sierra's time, she ought to give something back.

[Hey Sierra, I can't stop thinking about you, and I can't think straight when I do think about you.]

Nope, not sending that one. Aside from not being either academic or a fair exchange, she also wasn't at all sure if the other girl felt the same. That was the trouble! If she could just ask! That would be all, but asking meant not only being prepared to accept a no, but also being prepared to go forward if it was a yes. And oh boy, was she unprepared.

It was time to call in the ultimate deal, the best she could offer.

[Pizza at Apocalyptic is on me if you can help me figure out what's ado about nothing.]

The reply was ten minutes in coming, time enough for Harriet to reach the street.

[I can't tonight, but is tomorrow okay?]

[Works for me.]

[See you at 7, then.]

Apocalyptic Pizza was the kind of place that could only survive near a college. Not a chain joint, strictly single store. Nothing spectacular about it, aside from a real solid understanding of the way morphs could eat. Some pizzas were thinly disguised meat delivery vehicles, and some were a feast of vegetables. Not Harriet's thing.

But the portion sizes were big, the costs were low, and the dinosaur luchador mascot, Cataclysmo, was kind of cute. Lots of folks on campus had a Cataclysmo shirt or cap.

Harriet had arrived early, snagged a booth near the back, and was busy reading through the script when Sierra arrived. The immediate response her brain went to was to just drool and mumble something about how pretty she was. Not helpful, so she took a breath to recover, and grinned.

"Thanks, Sierra, I owe you. Probably more than just pizza, really."

"Hey, don't get too ahead of yourself, we don't know how much I'm helping or not."

You're mere presence is helping my mood wonders. Harriet wanted to say, but-

"Didn't think I warranted that much enthusiasm, but alright."

"Ohshit did I-"

"Say that out loud? Oh yeah you did. You, miss, might have some explaining to do."

Busted.

"Can we pizza and study, first?"

"Fine. We can pizza and study. But you are not getting away from me without answers, Harriet."

The waiter came by with a tray. "Half and half Meatpocalypse and Tofu Inferno, Tsar Bomba-size. Eat up."

"Ah! You remembered? But we only ate here one time, like a year ago."

One year, three months, fifteen days. Harriet knew exactly when that had been. She remembered what Sierra had been wearing, how her hair had been done. Everything. The slick green dress that was long enough to be unusually modest for a college crowd but perfect on the leggy deer morph. And it matched her eyes, too. Grass green. The matched choker, adornment on that gorgeous neck. Just one set of piercings, that she knew of, little understated silver hoops in her ears.

Bombshell.

It had been the aftermath party for their home opener. Harriet had been nursing some pretty good bruises. Cracked ribs, as it turned out, and plenty of other damage. So she'd been in the back, sitting, munching on slice after slice of something only a carnivore could survive eating. Calories, gotta have them, both to fuel on the field and recover after. She'd met Sierra a few weeks before, had a nice fitting session. They'd talked sports bras and waistcoats, and how they intersected.

Sierra had talked, Harriet had listened and tried to remember it all behind the haze of infatuated hormones.

The current moment was more relevant, as lovely as those memories were.

Shakespeare, the bard himself, all over the witty wordplay and double entendres. The play itself wasn't hard to get. There were plenty of performances on video, some of them very, very good, and Harriet had munched popcorn chicken through several of them. It was fun, but the layered subtext was a little over her head. Like many of his plays, lots of deception and subterfuge, with the end result being happy marriages for several.

"Seriously, these two like each other, but don't realize it until someone else tricks them into realizing they like each other? That seems a little weird to me."

"Far fetched? Maybe a little. But consider this: if you're told it's not proper or acceptable to like someone, that you have to hide and subdue that, how long before you genuinely believe you don't like them? What then, if something changes and makes it okay to like them again? Weird way to think of it, but maybe that's a way to unpack it."

Harriet chewed that one over, and her brain reached out for something to link it to. "Like 20th-21st civil rights changes. No you can't love other men, no you can't love other girls. No you can't love people with different skin colors. Then the 22nd century monstrosity with us morphs and all of the crazy laws that failed completely to rein in the fact that humans, regardless of shape, don't usually get to dictate who makes them go gooey-brained."

Which also ran some pretty sharp lines into her current mess.

"Yeah." Sierra had set her pizza aside. Probably going to put the other two slices in a box for later. College students never turned down cold pizza for breakfast. Some sort of union rule. "Romeo and Juliet examines some similar themes. What happens when you're told that it's not okay to love someone, but your heart won't listen? How terribly can that go for you, and your loved ones?"

The talk of love and romance, and the consequences thereof, had Harriet wishing for field practice bruises instead of the heart-tangling she was getting instead. Shakespeare, all about sex, love, and dick jokes. And she needed to focus on untangling the bard's prose, not her own mess. But she just couldn't stop. Every third sentence she'd catch herself studying the slope and curve of Sierra's neck instead of the script. And so on.

Sierra knew it, too, but she was patient. Saintly, really, far more patient than Harriet deserved. Which did absolutely nothing to dissuade her attraction or help her focus. Still, the cervine's patient tutoring was doing the job, and Harriet felt like she was getting the flow of things. At least, she was pretty sure she had this assignment sorted. The real question was whether her professor would agree, but that was going to be a thing to find out later.

"Okay," Sierra smiled as Harriet stuffed her books back in her bag. "Now that we've dealt with the bard, lets deal with you, miss lynx. So it looks like you're carrying a crush along, I guess?"

"That's an understatement."

"How long?"

"Um. When did we meet?"

"Oh. That long, huh? And never left me even a little hint. Why's that?"

Harriet mumbled something under her breath.

"Oh come on. You, I've seen you on the field, you're fearless and aggressive. And now you're flustered on the arts nerd? Where's all that fire? Did you leave it in the locker room?"

How could she explain that all of the ferocity she played on the field was meaningless in pursuit of something she didn't want to crush, but to treat with the gentlest of caresses. Unlike Sierra, Harriet was a pretty simple person, she lacked facility with words, no real artistic skills to call her own. She was reasonably smart, athletic, but not inspired or skilled outside of her limited specialty. Even her major (Technical Writing) was about as exciting as drying paint, and about as useful to expressing her feelings.

"It's not that easy, you know? On the field there's- there's a structure and a process. There are rules and goals and clear understanding of what angles and actions will bring me closer to victory. I understand that on the field. Here? What are the rules? Where are the boundaries? Are you on my team, or are you the goal? I can't even- I can't manage to make the questions even make sense in my own head, how am I supposed to answer them?"

"Talking it out seems to help. Just like with the homework. Bounce ideas off someone else. Things rarely sound as confused outside our heads as they are inside." Sierra paused to consider for a moment. "You've got a direct head on things. You're one who makes a decision and goes for it, fully. So it makes sense that if you can't make a decision, you won't just go for it. But now that you have it all in the open, what will you do?"

"That kind of depends on whether you want to be pursued or want me to just leave you alone." Harriet tried to keep the subtext of misery off that last option, but could tell she hadn't really succeeded. Even the most blind of poker players could have read that. And the deer might not be a cardshark, but she was certainly not blind.

"I won't say that I'm ready to just jump into your arms and be swept away. But I think you're cute, I love how tongue-tied you get, and I'm willing to give it a try. Want to count this as a first date?"

Harriet knew better than to say yes. "I have a better idea. Isn't there a Shakespeare tour coming through Broadway soon? We could take a Sunday and go see a show?"

"Okay, you certainly know how to play to my tastes. Fine, let's go next Sunday. You shouldn't have a game or anything that week, right?"

"Correct. We have one tomorrow, then there's a two week break before the playoffs. Coach will probably want a million hours of practice, but when doesn't she? I'll work it out with her."

*

"Are they all this, this, this bawdy?" Sierra giggled, arm in arm with Harriet as they left the theater into a light dust of snow.

"The comedies are, yeah. Shakespeare was the original grand master of the dick joke, and when he's not trying to teach a lesson or history, he gets to cut loose and have fun."

"That whole scene with the, the servant going on about his ladyfriend. Comparing her to a globe and everything. They just snapped that one back and forth like it was nothing, like it was just talking shit over a beer by themselves, instead of to a thousand people watching." It was chilly, and the snow was starting to pick up, so they turned down an alley to cut a closer path toward the metro entrance.

"A matter of practice, rehearsal, and really enjoying what you do."

"Not all that different than playing rugby, then. Organized, practiced, and passionate. I couldn't manage to be that witty even one on one, though. Guess we'll have to settle for me just bulling through. Got a dessert plan?"

"I know a place, there's a nice little cafe, let me just get us a cab."

Sierra did indeed know a nice cafe, and it even offered to-go cups. Which meant they were able to settle in side by side on the train. "This stuff's good. Little rich for my taste, but god, hot, thick and creamy is a wonderful thing on a cold night."

Sierra grinned, nudged Harriet with her elbow, and murmured, "not what I want to have warming me up, but I'll take it."

"What was that?"

Sierra flushed, her ears reddening as she realized that Harriet had heard her clearly enough. "Sh... shut up and put an arm around me, you brute."

"Brute?" Harriet put an arm around the deer's waist and pulled her in closer. "Why call me a brute?"

She mumbled something, then kissed the lynx's ears. "I've seen you on the field, you know. Never miss a game, home or away. I have seen the kind of power you put out. And you came in for that fitting." Harriet felt fingers on her ears, then Sierra stopped, and turned to face her. Fingers traced down the side of her face, and she leaned into them, a thoughtless reaction to pleasant contact. They didn't stop moving, curling against her jaw, a thumb touching her nose.

Sierra touched that thumb to a canine. "Seen you up close, seen these teeth all displayed. Yeah it was a smile, but I've seen the snarl, too. You're powerful Harriet. And you've been through intro psych and intro sexuality. You know what powerful does to some folks, especially those of us who bought in on the predator and prey mythology."

She did, too, though it was a bit fuzzy. Those two classes had both been freshman year, and while lots of snickering went on about intro sexuality, it was a lot drier than the laughers implied. So much biology, physiology, history and economics, profiles of turning points and the people that had been the pivots. There was a lot in that course, but it was all introduction, just a glimpse and invitation, as well as being heavily geared toward making the campus safer and nicer. A very up front section on consent and safety, right at the front. Part of why the course was mandatory, first year, first semester, for everyone.

It had gone over the basic building blocks of sexualities, orientations, preferences, and what those labels meant, and where they were fuzzy. Harriet had paid a lot of attention to the 'predator crash course' section, since it applied to her directly. Read the partner about when and whether teeth were welcome, and know your own capabilities so you don't wind up harming anyone. The prey section had been similar, from the other direction. Identify and understand your impulses, and have some care deciding which ones to give in to.

"Yeah, I know what the general deal is with prey and teeth. And claws." She flexed a little, and those claws pricked Sierra's waist through her dress. Careful pressure, not going to damage the fabric unless she moved fast. She didn't, but the shiver and faint little noise in the back of her throat was powerful enough. That sent the messages that Harriet had been hoping to hear. More than she had been aware, really, it was the kind of reaction she hadn't hoped for, but had wanted in a subconscious way.

She didn't fight the growl that pushed its way to the surface. It wasn't angry, far from it, but an expression of a hunger that had nothing to do with food. She leaned a little closer and touched her nose to Sierra's neck. Just a tracing of teeth there, and a chance to inhale deep, to settle the deer's scent right into her nose, inhale her.

Harriet huffed a little, and looked around the train. Half full, no privacy, even this late at night. It wasn't all that far to Boston either. "So. I guess neither of us is going home alone. The question comes to where we go? I kind of doubt my dorm mate would argue us staying over, but it's still a shared room and I don't." She swallowed down anxiety. "I don't want to share. Don't want to share you with anyone at all."

"Harriet, you're lying if you say you're no good at romance. There's no need to worry about a dorm room, and you know it. You just give me fifteen minutes and we'll have a place to stay the night. It's a study session. We're going to call it that, anyway." She opened her phone, the little holographic keypad projection letting her go faster than a touchscreen.

"The only thing I want to study is every curve of you, every taste and scent and sound." It had sounded good in her head, but she wasn't at all sure how it was going to sound outside.

Sierra paused in whatever she was doing, then gave a little shiver. "Okay, you definitely, definitely picked something up tonight, and it wasn't just the 'yes please flirt with me' vibes I've been trying to send."

Harriet relaxed a little. So it had come out alright. Good. Her deer had finished whatever she was on about. My deer? Is it that serious? Does she think it's that serious?

Maybe?

"There." Sierra closed her phone. "We have a room waiting for us at a little place just off campus. It's not fancy but it's private. We sometimes use the same place for cast parties after a show, so I've been a few times." Harriet wasn't sure, but it sounded like there was something else unsaid, there.

They stayed close for the rest of the ride, another half hour, not speaking much. But kisses and touches spoke volumes on their own. If a picture was worth a thousand words, a kiss must be at least ten times that. The fast rail dropped them off, and they switched to metro tunnels for the rest of the short trip, getting off at the university stop. Sierra led from there, away from campus in the night chill, though neither of them had much issue with the darkness. It was only a few minutes to their destination, a walk up in one of the rows of houses that surrounded the college. The door barely paused when Sierra tapped her phone to it, the lock accepting her right to be there without a hitch.

Inside was dark, still, but warmer, and so quiet that Harriet could hear breath. Sierra's as well as her own. At a glance, the house was empty, barren, but there was furniture stacked against the walls, covered over with drop cloths and plastic. The lights responded to Sierra's touch, and bare wood floors and worn paint came into view. "Yeah, it's kind of a dump, but it's storage for the theater department. All of this junk is... junk, but no one ever wants to get rid of anything. Never know when we might put on the steampunk version of Midsummer Night's Dream again, and need this."

"This" turned out to be an extravagantly upholstered throne, painted in gold and chrome. Sierra planted her butt in it and posed, grinning. Harriet couldn't resist the impulse to play along, and went down on one knee. "My queen, my Titania, what pleasure draws you to this mortal world?"

The deer fumbled for a reply. Which, in Harriet's opinion, was adorable. And usually her job, the foundering and blushing and having-a-hard-time-thinking-straight. Not that she minded, that flustered look fit well on the deer, even if it was unusual.

"I don't think I should call you Bottom, but Oberon? You're a powerful figure, and personally, I think you'd look amazing in just a loincloth and some special effects faerie fire."

The lynx grinned. "Oh heck yes, got any of that stuff hanging around in here?"

"Um? Maybe, god only knows what's in all of these rooms. I think the back bedroom on this floor is costuming's storage. Lighting and effects has a room upstairs. There's an empty room up there, too, which is why I brought us here but now I think you have other plans?"

Plans. Harriet wasn't really making plans here. None of this had any scripting or premeditation to it. She was flying by the seat of her pants and hoping she stuck the landing. "Costumes. Wonder if there's a pretty but revealing dress in there for you, that fits? Let's find out."

The room was densely packed, but neatly organized, with tubs labeled by show or genre, haphazardly stacked. King Lear and Macbeth supported Untamed Mane, and the dresses and overcoats that couldn't be folded were hanging from a bar that stretched the entire length of the room. Sierra pointed out a couple of productions that might have loincloths while she fingered through the dresses. Clearly had something specific in mind, she wasn't browsing randomly, didn't even open any of the hanging bags, just checked the tag and moved on.

Harriet found what she'd been looking for in a tub marked History Abridged, a wide belt of faux leather and copper-colored metal plates, with a silk loincloth hanging in front. And nothing in the rear, since it had been designed for morphs, and tails tended to make some articles of clothing less suitable. She was busy getting changed when she heard a sound of mixed triumph and delight.

Sierra was busy taking down and opening an outfit, and the lynx grinned when she saw the neat match it made. Similarly skimpy, faux leather, copper and silk, but in her case a halter top, a skirt, and a cape that looked like falling leaves all the way down her back.

"You look like a- um- what're those tree spirits?"

"A dryad?"

"Yeah, those. You look like one of those got upgraded to queen of the forest."

It fit her pretty well, and she fussed with something Harriet couldn't see to make it fit better. "Not all that far from the goal. Titania was queen of the fae and the wood, and Oberon was her king, the wild hunter. Which is... pretty close to what we want to be, isn't it? I won't say 'chase me down and tear this dress off me, it's not going to be easy to replace or repair. But I want to say that. I want you to do that."

Stunned was a good word. What had happened to 'I'm not sure, let's go on a date and see what happens'? Sierra had certainly seemed to make up her mind in a hurry. Whatever tonight had been so far, it clearly wasn't over.

"And look at you, come on, look in the mirror over here." Harriet didn't resist a gentle push to her shoulders, to line her up and get her in place.

She saw a stout lynx, she knew that figure and face, with the side cut hair, stubby ears and powerful frame. She wasn't tall and imposing, just powerful and ferocious, and had seen no reason to pretend she wasn't. The loincloth just set all that on display. She wouldn't be able to wander campus like this, not topless, because however small her breasts were, they were still there. And her blush when Sierra cupped one in each hand from behind was felt, even if it couldn't be seen.

"So," the deer murmured into Harriet's ear. "Aren't we a pair? What should we do now, my warrior king? Go upstairs? Stay down here? Try on a few more costumes and see what looks best on us? Or do you want to find out how this dress looks on the floor?"

The lynx started to ask why she would care about how a dress looked on the floor, and the words almost got out before comprehension smacked her in the back of the head. "Oh. Oh!" She nodded firmly. "Yes, I am very curious how that dress is going to look on the floor, yes." Which only left her one very, very important admission.

"I haven't actually... done this. Before. With another woman."

"What, really? Well I guess the follow up question has to be, do you want to? I mean... you're certainly eager with your tongue, talking yourself into this. Kind of wonder if your tongue's as eager for other things? I'm curious what you taste like, and I expect you're curious too. What I taste like, and what it's like to be tasted, no?" There had to be some theater trick involved, Sierra's voice was low, husky, whispered just for her, even though there was no one else around to hear it anyway. And Harriet felt her stomach trying to flip-flop. Her voice was doing things that shouldn't be possible, resonating in the lynx's bones.

"I do. I do wanna try. You know what we're up to, right?" She felt like a dope, but she was in totally new territory now, and on the other woman's turf, too.

"Yeah, I know. It's not utterly new territory for me. So we'll go slow, there's no rush. We have all night in front of us. And maybe some time beyond that, I guess we'll find out. So how about we go upstairs. You can take my dress off, and I'll teach you a lesson from another long dead literary figure. Sappho of Lesbos, to name her, and if you haven't read her Ode to Aphrodite, I'll read it to you sometime soon." She took Harriet's hand, pulled her to the door, to the stairs, up into the dark upper corridor. The bedroom was pretty bland, just a bed on one wall and some extra furniture piled against the other. The light was off, but they didn't need it, the curtains were open and the moonlight was more than enough.

Harriet was surprised when the door shut, and she found herself suddenly pushed against the wall, one hand on her shoulder, one hand on her wrist, and one deer kissing her with heat and passion. The intensity of the kiss was blinding, disorienting, and Harriet found she couldn't really fight back. Or didn't want to, at all. Probably both, and she'd worry about sorting it later, because right now was just too good to give up any time or thought to second-guessing. Harriet was passive for a little longer, she didn't know how to respond, how to push forward. This was new territory, and she'd been expecting a helping hand, not a devouring flame.

Options popped up, though, and she took them. Little reminders that led to her using that powerful physique, pushing Sierra off, and turning the tables, pushing her against the wall, and putting teeth to her throat. Had to stand on her toes to do it, but it got the point across. Several points, and the way the cervine sort of melted in her arms answered all kinds of questions and raised so many more. The biggest of them, what now, didn't get much chance to bloom.

"You've got those predator instincts, my love, and god those are good. Let me just go with you, just say, don't worry about asking me questions, just do what you would want done to you. Touch where you would want to be touched, and how. You're smart, you'll read the responses easy, and you know how to pleasure yourself. So no big deal, just do it like I'm you, and if we need to adjust something, we'll do that."

Seemed like sound advice to her. And gave her a guide to where to put her hands, although the very first step was to get that dress off of her. Carefully would be best. It looked irreplaceable, as well as good on her. And Harriet found herself wanting to take time, even though almost all of her lover was on display, in baring the rest. She knew that 'just do as you'd have done to you' wasn't going to work, she wasn't the right shape or the right species, or even the right mindset, to feel the same way. But she knew how to use her teeth and her claws, and caressed with those, everywhere that the dress left behind. Neck and throat, she dwelled there for a while. And those soft half-gasps in the back of Sierra's throat were music.

Louder, wordless sounds when she peeled the dress down, and nipped at collarbone, then worshiped at every curve and line and peak of her breasts. Heavy and full, more than a handful, certainly more than a mouthful, and so responsive when she nipped or licked.

Her middle needed no revealing, but as she went down on her knees, Harriet couldn't help but kiss and nip and lick. The fur was thinner here, and Sierra let out a low and throaty moan when the lynx finally set teeth in at her waist, and fingers found the clasp above her tail. It wasn't much security, and it took only a little pressure for the whole dress to drop, pooling fabric and metal around her hooves. And Harriet looked up along those curves, her tongue out, just gently touching between the deer's thighs. It was a beautiful sight, and she wanted to lock it into her memory forever. Burn it into her eyes like those ancient monitors in the museum of technology. A scattered part of her brain filed that away, a date for another weekend.

"Don't keep me waiting, cat. If you can't feel my pulse, you just need to get a little closer." She could, actually, faintly feel it on her tongue and her cheek, sensitive things tongues, and hers was sending back so much information it was hard to parse out. Taste: light, sweet, heavy with anticipation and longing. Ambrosia. Touch: not just the sensation of thin, short fur and the flesh under it, but the flutter of muscles, the racing heartbeat. Texture, she knew her tongue wasn't as rough as a true big cat, but it was textured enough that she needed to be gentle with it, especially with parts as delicate and sensitive as the ones she had on it now.

She was careful, and gentle, and curious all in turns. Sierra tasted good and she wasn't sure if that was just the flavor or all the extra excitement and lust and powerful want layered on top of it. But hands in her hair, one on her ear, rubbing and coaxing her forward, closer in. "Come on, come on girl, I can't wait, don't keep me waiting. Don't hold back, I'll tell you if you're doing anything wrong or bad. But doing nothing is bad, don't do nothing, I don't like being teased."

Harriet put a hand on each butt cheek, dug fingers in, and pulled. Pushing her blunt muzzle up against the deer's pussy, nuzzling and licking. And Sierra kept talking, guiding, encouraging. "Slower, drag more, don't flick."

"Ah fuck! Y-yeah, right there, just keep doing tha-a-AHH!"

"D-d-don't bite there, just a little leftohgodyesdothat!" She really did have a strong reaction to teeth on her thighs, butt, belly. Harriet was strong enough to hold her up just in her hands, which allowed for all sorts of manipulation, let her move and support the deer so she could get her teeth and tongue almost anywhere. Right at the base of her tail, that one got a squeal of delight and excitement when she bit, and a moan when she licked. "Dirty lynx."

"Are you complaining?"

"Fuck no, do it again."

"As you wish, my queen." Sierra giggled, and Harriet stood, lifted her up, and carried her to the bed. Not too gently, either, chucked her on to it and pounced, landing on top of her to bite and nibble and kiss at her neck. The meld of giggles and moans was enough to signal that all was going well, even without words. Which was fine, she wasn't in need of words. They'd just get in the way, and she sure wasn't ready to use them to express herself. She'd just fumble her tongue. And she could say it so much better with tongue and teeth, biting, licking, nuzzling, and getting her reply in moans and arched back, in hands tousled in her hair and thighs wrapped around her head.

Sierra was a wild thing, enthusiastic and unrestrained, and her guidance and urging brought climax after climax as she coached Harriet through. And an eager student, who memorized her lesson by repetition, rehearsal. Finally, the deer pushed her away with an exhausted giggle.

"Brute. Fiend! Of course my Oberon has the stamina of a wild hunter, but can she take as good as she can give? Also, do you want to find out what it's like being on top to receive from your queen? Or you wanna lie down and get what you gave?"

"I, um. Um? I don't know. I have no way to judge. What do you recommend?"

Sierra propped herself up on an elbow, and licked her muzzle. "You just come on up here. Here, closer. You knee goes there next to my head. Careful of the antlers. There we go." She had a knee on either side of the deer's head, and both of her hands were on the lynx's butt. She still had the loincloth on, but it didn't seem to matter much. The important bits were filmy silk anyway, barely opaque enough to matter, and an errant though wondered just what kind of show these had been used for. That thought went away in a hurry when Sierra licked. She kept a grip around Harriet's hips, not tight enough to prevent movement, but a good anchor point, good leverage and hold.

And her tongue felt good. Where the lynx had made do with enthusiasm, Sierra had skill and practice and it showed. Sure part of it was just how wound up and excited she was already, but the touches of tongue and nose and teeth were delightful, amazing. She growled and rocked her hips, but the real killer, the thing that was ruining her composure fastest was just how dead sexy she looked down there. In theory, from the outside, Harriet was the woman in control. She was on top, and with her powerful physique, Sierra should be helpless. That couldn't be further from the truth, and she knew it, looking down.

Sure, that lean angled muzzle was between her thighs, sure, it looked for all the world like the deer was servicing her, worshiping her, but she was putty in her hands. And those touches sending tremors through her body were something else entirely, a new sensation that was somehow way more powerful than the similar effects she'd been able to get with her vibrator on her own. Maybe not physically better, but the connection, the excitement, was worlds above what she could manage on her own. And god, the look in Sierra's eyes, smoldering up at her. Passion. Passion was as addictive.

Passion, and the sharing of it, was what poured her over the edge in howling, spasming glory, left her hunched over and breathless. She realized that she had two handfuls of antler, and let go in a hurry. "Sorry. Um. So sorry." Which prompted a giggle from the deer, who scooted a little bit and extricated a hand so she could pull Harriet down for a kiss. Not a fast and flaming kiss, but longer, slower. Still hot with passion but not incandescent.

"Don't be sorry. Didn't I tell you, if something isn't right, if something is wrong or doesn't work, we'll change it, we'll adjust? Am I complaining?" The lynx mutely shook her head. "That's right, I'm not. Because I'll be honest, that was hot. The way you pulled me in right then, and almost tried to, to, to... smother me in you was fucking hot. And this, now?"

She pushed a little, and Harriet moved, laying on her side. Sierra moved, getting behind her, and spooned up close, draping a hand across Harriet's middle, and planting her muzzle at the back of one ear. "This is comfortable, and happy, and I do not want to be anywhere else, with anyone else. You said earlier that you didn't want to share me with anyone? Well the same is true. I don't want to share you, and I don't want to be shared. Is that selfish? You are good, and I want you all to myself."

Harriet smiled. Sierra couldn't see it, but the lazy, satisfied look was all cat, quintessentially feline. "I think we can probably keep each other, yeah. You want to stay me Queen Titania, and I want to stay your King Oberon. Hey, think we can borrow these costumes for the party after we win the championship?"

"I think we could manage that. But you have to win, first."

"With the motivation of seeing you in that dress again? Nothing but that dress, mind you, if I have my way. But with that as a goal, do you think anything's going to stop me?"

"No, no I think you're probably good. I'll cheer anyway, and if anyone's confused as to why I'm chanting Oberon, well, they're going to figure it out anyway, eventually."

*

There were questions, at the semifinals game, but they vanished in a hurry when Sierra was waiting at the sidelines at halftime, and the kiss stunned the team in general. It had all the heat that their first, plus the added tiny bonus of playing to an audience. "Everyone was confused," she mumbled into the lynx's ear. "No one's confused anymore. Here, I made you something." She slipped some cloth in place, one around each bicep. Silk ties, dyed like fallen leaves. "You're my wild hunter, king of the forest. Go out there and prove it." Another smoldering kiss, and right in time for the break to be over.

The team rallied in behind her. They'd been behind, just outmatched by the other team's size and power. It failed, though. There just wasn't a lot they could do to stop Harriet, not with Sierra at her back. She could fail, sure, but it wouldn't be here, and it wouldn't be now. And the rest of the team picked up on it, with Martha and Helen flanking her as everyone settled in for the kickoff. Both of them wolves, and when they howled in unison, it was a pretty clear cue. They waited for the ball to land after the kick, and that was that. The howling, growling, roaring mass of rugby players was just too much to stand against, not with a stout fae king at their head, carrying the ball and plowing through anyone who got in her way.

They quickly made up the difference in points, playing with a ferocity that wasn't generally seen out of an otherwise fairly calm team. The audience caught on to it, and Harriet knew exactly who had started the chant of "O-BER-ON!"

*

Harriet settled down at a back booth at Apocalyptic, not unusual after a hard game, and having the semifinals at home like that, and a come-from-behind victory, meant the entire campus, and much of the surrounding town, was one gigantic party. Everybody knew the team would be here, though, and the management had called in every single person. Everyone wanted a pizza, everyone wanted to filter through and congratulate the team.

Which was fine, and all of them were riding a combined cocktail of adrenaline, endorphins, and exhaustion. All Harriet wanted to do was slip out the back and find a place to lay down, but she had to settle for nursing her bruises at her favorite back booth. Admittedly, the company was making it worthwhile, Sierra was next to her and close. Just about close enough, though the company meant there were far too many clothes in the way.

Sierra seemed to read her mind. "I know this isn't exactly how you want to celebrate, my king, but that's later. Probably not tonight, given how sore you look. Well... maybe tonight, if you promise to relax and let me be good to you."

With an order like that, she wasn't likely to argue. Heck she couldn't have put up much fight; she was thoroughly exhausted, and fighting against Sierra wasn't likely to be on her itinerary. Ever.

Still, she could wave and smile between mouthfuls of pizza, wash it down, and let the painkillers do their thing. Nothing fancy, but at least the abuse would hurt less, shortly.

Several hours later, the parties had burned themselves out, and the two of them were facing the same dilemma they'd had after that first date.

"My place or yours?"

Sierra shrugged. "Mine. Or... I don't think anyone's using the lofthouse at the moment, I'll see if it's open."

Harriet grinned. More costumes? Or maybe just to reprise their roles from the first time. Either was fine with her. "That sounds like just the right plan, my queen."

The lofthouse was just about like they'd left it, and Harriet settled into the throne. "You know, I always assumed that set pieces and furniture like this was bare minimum to look the part. But this is bordering on hedonistic."

Sierra grinned. "Yeah for a year we had a really, really over the top fabricator. We're not entirely sure how he did the things he did on the budget we gave him. Hyena kid, so probably lived up to his stereotypes and scavenged like a master. We elected not to ask too many questions. But that throne is his work. If you saw us do Heels Up the whole plane interior was done under his direction, with parts he supplied. We're pretty sure it's part of an actual airliner from the twenty-first, though where he found it is anyone's guess. No one reported a theft or anything, so we're assuming it wasn't stolen."

Harriet remembered that show. It had been an incredibly risque comedy about a "full service" trans-Atlantic plane trip. And Sierra had been one of the hostesses. The lynx had very fond memories of that outfit.

Sierra had almost read her mind. "No, the outfit's not here. Pretty sure it got sent to a different theater, along with the set, when they wanted to do a showing. You'd love to have me nearly bare-assed in your lap, I suppose?" Harriet nodded. "That's easy enough."

Her confused expression got a giggle, followed shortly by a pair of lacey panties on her muzzle, and Sierra settling on her lap sideways, skirt shifted a little so there was nothing between her ass and the lynx's lap but a pair of jeans. "Oh. Oh my goodness. You're a naughty thing, aren't you?"

"Definitely been a bad girl, Santa, but I'll tell you what I want for Christmas anyway. I know you'll like it, too." She leaned in, and whispered something, kissed one of those tufted ears, and leaned back to watch expressions as they came.

First was confusion, as she considered the words, what they meant. Then shock, as meanings became clear. Then a huge smile.

"I'd be a fool to say no. Yes. Yes, my queen, and as many other roles as you want to play with me. For me? No, with me, we're definitely playing together. And will be for... well, however long you'll have me. Until death do us part?"

"Save that little vow for the wedding, my love. We'll have to do a lot of talking about that, but for now... now I don't want to speak with my tongue, and I don't want you to speak words either."

"Oh?"

"Indeed." She wiggled her butt in Harriet's lap. "Why don't you carry me upstairs and we'll reprise our roles."

The bed was as comfortable as the last time, and someone had thoughtfully changed the sheets. Fresh ones. Silk?

"You planned this," Harriet accused.

"Guilty as charged. Either to celebrate victory or push away the specter of defeat. Either way, I was going to have you here, tonight." Always a step ahead. "Why don't you just lay back and let me give you all that I can. You're sore and worn out, my king, let me make your body sing."

Harriet had to admit her fiance had a little bit of poetry to her, and she wasn't half bad at it, either. She wasn't going to object, either, when Sierra started helping her undress. With lots of extra hands and rubbing and caressing and-

"Oh fuck yes that's... that's really good, please keep doing that." Sierra just had a hand between the lynx's legs, heavy rubbing with her whole hand, all the fingers together. Nothing penetrating, but massaging and pressing. And the other hand guiding and manipulating with gentle pushes and pulls, until Harriet was on her knees, bent over, thighs apart and head on a pillow. A pretty comfortable position, required little to no effort on her part.

Which was good, she was every bit as worn out as her lover had accused. Not that she was going to complain about the treatment she was getting, the deer had some wonderfully skilled fingers. Delicate touches, but enough pressure, applied at the right spots, to make her moan low and heavy. This wasn't going to be any sort of panting, heavy thing, and she was right, the orgasm that came from her lover's touch was slow, building and falling gently into a pleasant haze of euphoria. A little later, curled up together, Sierra spooned up behind her, Harriet held one of the deer's hands, and kissed the knuckles.

"I don't deserve you, you know."

"That's silly talk. It's not about deserving, though you do. You earned me. With your earnest heart and complete inability to hide your feelings. You have an absolutely terrible poker face, by the way. You wear your heart on your sleeve, as they used to say. And you know, when I got a chance to look at that heart, I couldn't help falling for it."

To which Harriet simply could not reply, not with anything fancy or meaningful. Words were just not her friend, especially not when they had to say things she couldn't even frame for herself. "You talked to me like I was anyone else."

"What?"

"When I came in for that fitting, Freshman year. It was this weird time and it was just a mess of the team talking me up and laying expectations on me, and I wasn't sure I was going to measure up. And then to anyone not on the team I'm just this new freshman, easy to ignore. And there you are, just... treating me like I was anyone else, not dismissing me, but not heaping expectations on me or trying to amp me up. It stuck out. There were two kinds of people and then there was you, a class all of your own."

Harriet paused for another kiss on those knuckles. "Didn't hurt even a little bit that you're gorgeous. Seriously, no way anyone's going to look at uss and not see how beautiful you are. Me? Nah, I'm not. I'm strong, and I'm sharp, but I'll never be a beauty."

Which earned her a bite on the ear.

"Ow! Hey, what's the idea here?"

"You do not say such things, love. You are beautiful, to me, and anyone who disagrees is going to get an earful. So we'll start with you. Beauty. Define it for me, please."

"Uh. Something or someone that's good to look at?"

"Think about that for a moment. Is my appearance what makes me beautiful to you?"

There was very clearly a wrong answer, there.

"No."

"So if it's not my looks, what makes me beautiful to you?"

"Your... your everything. The way you look, the way you sound, the way you, you- the way you move and the smell of you that I can't ever forget. The way you speak and act. The way you're always listening to me be dumb, and not treating me like I'm dumb, or just a musclehead jock."

"Okay. So how does that not apply to you?"

"Um."

"Exactly. You're not the picture of classical feminine beauty. So what? If you want to try and approximate it, I can certainly help, but why would you? You're so strong, and kind. You're plain spoken. The things you say I can trust because I know you mean them just as they sound. You're not trying to manipulate me, or get something from me. You're just saying what you think is true, what you see.

"Someone said that truth is beauty, and you are true. You are what you seem to be. What you say is what you will do, and there's no attempt at deception. Can't you see how wonderful that is?"

Harriet had to admit the point. She didn't have a poker face at all, and lying wasn't a thing she wanted to be good at, really. She was glad that Sierra didn't see that as a problem.

*

"This is bad, Oberon." Harriet was pretty sure the nickname was permanent now. "Martha's down for the game, Everyone's beat up good, and even Vicki's worn out." And wearing a baseline human athlete down was a remarkable feat. More so, Victoria had embraced her ancestry to the hilt, with all of the tattoos and bombastic bravado, a living emblem of ancient Maori warriors. Some people took their heritage seriously, and Vicki was one of them.

"We're only down four." Which was about five too many.

"Yeah. Only." Sandra settled in at Harriet's side as the referee got ready to start the scrum. This was going to be brutal, but if they wanted any chance at winning, they had to get the ball, right here and right now. They had to get a try, or lose the national finals. There wasn't time for anything else.

Time.

Time?

"Shitshit, we have a timeout left, right?"

"I think so?"

"Call it. Signal coach. NOW."

They got the signal off, and a bewildered referee set the clock for the timeout. It would help, an extra minute to catch their breath, but more importantly:

"VICKI! Call it!"

The team shook down into lines, tallest in the back. This only worked- if it worked- on getting the biggest bang forty seconds could give them.

Vicki was tall, lean and all angles. There was a good chance some genetic mods had been involved in making her look like a tribal princess, but the tattoos had all been done by hand, traditionally. And she stalked through the ranks of her team chanting her challenge. It could only be the fifteen on the field, and they might not finish by the time was up, but it might work anyway.

Fifteen seconds, she finished the caller's chant, and the team took it up, stomping in time, smacking thighs and elbows as they went through the words. It was a short haka, the ka mate. Short but powerful, a chant for unity and defiance, celebrating life and denying death. Maybe the stakes were a little lower than that, right now, but as worn out as they all were, anything would help.

It ended with five seconds left on the time out, and the entire team charged up and got into position, braced for the scrum.

The ball was shot in, and the following fifty seconds was chaos. Harriet pushed with everything she had, her team behind her shoving in one mass, trying to establish control over the ball, and get it into the opposing goal. She honestly wasn't sure which of them had the ball, just that it wasn't the other team, and it wasn't her.

Everyone collapsed, and the whistle blew. She realized that she, at least, was over the line. But where was the ball? She couldn't see it anywhere, and she could almost feel the crowd holding their collective breath as he referee tried to sort people and bodies out to find the ball.

The breath-holding ended in an exultant roar as the referee finally blew his whistle, one hand straight up. Harriet realized that at least part of that roar was hers, as the team dragged each other to their feet, dog-tired, worn out and every fiber of them singing exhausted glory. The other team was just as caught up in it. Rugby was one of those sports where good sportsmanship was every bit as important as playing. They'd be as much a part of the party as Central Boston tonight, and the party would probably last them until they boarded the plane for home.

But tonight... tonight it was time to celebrate. Rest and recovery could wait, both teams would nurse broken bones and concussions on the side, but they'd be going drink for drink and-

Harriet's thoughts skittered to a halt as something tall, brown, and clad in gold hit her. Where had Sierra hidden the dress? How had she changed without anyone noticing? And-

"Oh fuck thinking," she muttered, then grabbed her fiance and gave her the most predatory, possessive, claiming kiss she could manage. The teams, both of them, whistled. Some heat on that kiss.

"Hello beautiful. Miss me?"

"You sure didn't miss me. Careful, ribs are a little less than happy." Sierra ruffled the short hair between her ears. "God, you're as beautiful as ever, my queen." They were both being escorted off the pitch by cheering teammates and the calls of the crowd, and while non-players in the locker room might not be technically okay, no one was arguing. The fact that half their team was on the injured list probably contributed to the lack of vocal objections. That and no one had any illusions about what Sierra was there for.

"Nope. Dead center mass, that's where I hit you. You're mine now, right? I don't have to share you with anyone tonight?"

"Gotta do the post game meetings and stuff. And there's a gigantic party, you know that."

"After that. I can steal you away from the party before tomorrow morning, yes?"

"Is it really stealing if what you're taking is yours anyway?"

***

Graduation had been a few weeks ago. It was summer, and that had made it a little bit harder to reserve all of the space needed, but it had been worth the effort. In the end, they'd settled on just using the university's facilities, which had saved some decent amount of trouble. Hotels for everyone had been a little more of an issue, what with the number of people who had decided they needed to be invited.

"Still worth it."

"You say something, Harriet?"

"Just talking to myself, Ma. I'm glad you and Dad could make it back in time."

"No thing as little as a solar flare is gonna keep me from seeing this." Harriet's mother was shorter than her daughter, and wider in the hips, if not the shoulders. Her father was where those had come from, and he was on her other side as they stood at one end of the field. Her team, as well as several past players, coaches, and some of the more memorable opponents, was on one side. The other side was a similarly wide menagerie. Theater, design, arts, literature. Staff and classmates, and a cervine family.

Some of those design folks had helped her, and the outfit she wore was part tuxedo, part costume. The whole Oberon thing had stuck, and if she was honest, she didn't mind being referred to as a faerie king of the hunt. It certainly tickled her queen, and that was more than enough to please her.

Speaking of her.

Father on one side, mother on the other, but the only deer she cared to focus on was in the middle. She'd met Sierra's parents already, and her father had some truly bad jokes to share. But Sierra... her friends had done an even better job (as far as she measured things) on the wedding dress than her tux. It was brown and gold and copper, making her an autumn dryad, with gilding and fine chains on her antlers and a trailing flutter of silk scarves. There was something ethereal about the dress, but there was nothing ethereal about her.

The paperwork and formalities had already been dealt with, this was the pageantry, the show and ritual of a wedding, not the legalities. The first clue that something might be up was that the one leading the show was the head of the theater department, a grinning old man named Doctor Marless. And he was all smiles today.

"Mawwiage," he proclaimed. "Mawwiage is what bwings us togevve-Ow! Ow okay okay, stop hitting me, fine we'll do i the boring way. Sheesh. No appreciation for the classics. Fine."

He cleared his throat, and started over.

"As long as there have been people, there have been ways and reasons to choose a partner, someone with whom you wish to spend the rest of your days. There have been various ways of showing the world your choice. In ancient Greece, throwing an apple to your intended was a proposition. In the twentieth and twenty-first, the question, at least in the western world, was a simple "will you marry me" often accompanied by a ring. How things started is a good story, but that's only the beginning. The future is what we are here to celebrate.

"There have been at least as many ways to perform this ceremony, and I looked at most of them for inspiration when Sierra asked me to officiate for this wedding. But in the end, after all the flowery language and ritual, every single ceremony worth noting comes down to the same question, and to be honest, that's the only part of this that's actually important. So I won't drone on and on about the sanctity of marriage, or the duties and responsibilities of partnership. You already know these things, there won't be a surprise there that you didn't anticipate.

"Sierra Ramona Morris, do you, in full and completely, agree to take Harriet as your wife, accepting all of the responsibilities involved?"

Sierra paused a moment, and a brief flash of worry seized Harriet. But it was just to gather breath, followed by a simple "I do."

"And do you, Harriet Fizi Amadeus agree to take Sierra as your wife, accepting all of the responsibilities involved?"

No hesitation on her part. There was no doubt. "I do."