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Put A Ring On It

• Chapter 11 of the Legends of the DragonRider

Tiffany whistled cheerily as she climbed the steep path towards the Utopia. The reason for her fine mood would likely be fairly obvious to anyone who got close enough to catch a whiff of her scent - or rather, the scent of a dozen or so rutting stallions, which clung to her sturdy, curvaceous frame along with the slimy wetness of her inner thighs. She was starting to suspect that the colts of the Equus village didn't respect her, and in fact were merely using her body as an outlet for their youthful hormones while sneering behind her back... but it didn't particularly bother the vivacious young redhead. After all, that was exactly what she was doing with them.

What_did_ worry her a bit was the question of whether her colleagues were aware of her frequent jaunts down to the village, or the purpose thereof. They were all Free Lovers, of course - all of them had made a career out of satisfying the sexual urges of those unfortunates who'd found no time in their lives for genuine relationships - so it wasn't as if anyone was going to start slinging around words like 'slut' or 'harlot' without some truly massive hypocrisy behind it. But she did know that her particular love of animals - and animal-like people, to a lesser degree - made her a bit different. She had, in fact, gone to some pains - with a bit of help from the ever-wondrous DragonRider - to conceal her regular activities in the Caravansary stables. The heroic Anitra, of course, hadn't a shred of prejudice in her, and indeed seemed to rather enjoy an occasional dalliance of the bestial sort herself...

Well, point was, while spending time with the Equus wasn't quite the same thing, she still didn't really want to advertise her habits in that direction. Hence, her immediate destination was the showers. Her chambers didn't have one - only the larger suites did - but there was a public bath attached to her habitat-block, and at this time of day, there wasn't likely to be anyone else there. She'd be able to wash off the smell of the passionate - and rather sweaty - colts in peace.

Her path to the baths, however, led her right past the room of Verdi, the aging, gossip-loving green dragon who served as the block's minder, and the residents' primary contact with the Utopia's draconic government. And, as she did, a dusty-green head emerged from the den, carried on an impressively long and agile neck. "Oh, _there_you are, Tiffany dear..." she said, with a fang-filled smile that likely would have been somewhat intimidating had the fangs in question not been mostly dark-yellow, chipped, and occasionally missing. Tiffany found herself pondering whether age had dulled the dragon's nose as much as her bleary, oft-squinting eyes, as she stopped in her tracks to see what the old dear wanted.

"Need me for something, Mrs. Verdi?" She asked cheerfully, resisting the instinctive urge to cross her legs. Everyone called the old dragon-minders 'Mrs', despite that not really being applicable to dragons - they didn't even have last names, invariably identifying themselves by just a single name. Presumably, the fact that there just wasn't all that many dragons, period, meant that they weren't likely to run out of names, at least not within a single dragonhome. Regardless, the minders had apparently decided that it was some human expression of respect, which wasn't far from the truth, and accepted it with suitable grace.

Verdi, still smiling, shook her head. "Oh, not a such, dear. I just thought I'd tell you - a letter came for you while you were out. It'll be waiting in your room, and you might want to take a look at it quite soon!" There was a familiar sparkle in the old dragon's bleary eyes - unsurprisingly, it seemed like Mrs. Verdi had a pretty good idea about what that letter might contain. "Ah, thank you Mrs. Verdi... something important, you think?" Tiffany fished, her eyes jumping from the nearby baths to the adjacent corridor leading into the habitat-block itself and her cozy little room. Verdi chuckled, the thick, creased scales of her eyebrows rising. "Oh, I couldn't possibly say, dear. I hardly go around reading other people's mail! Though... it did seem to be an awfully fancy envelope..."

She couldn't get anything else out of the old green, and after thanking her once again for the heads-up, she reluctantly decided to proceed to the baths first, rather than satisfying her curiosity immediately. Several of the other Free Lovers lived in the same block as her, and the chance of running into one of them while reeking of horse-cum was just too high. The baths proved as deserted as she'd hoped, though, and she quickly went through the motions, washing off the sweat - her own and theirs - along with the scrubbing off the white goo that was clinging to her inner thighs and her buttocks. Then she looked at herself in the mirror, noticed a rather sticky-looking, slimy patch in her curly red hair, and sighed. She couldn't recall when it might've happened - she'd told them not to get cum in her hair since it was a pain to have to wash it all the time. Hopefully, anyone who'd seen her along the way would've just assumed it was matted by sweat... hopefully. Had Verdi noticed? Her aged eyes_could_ be quite sharp when they needed to be, as her observation about the exact quality of the recently-arrived envelope had demonstrated.

Well, it wasn't as if the old green was any kind of prude, Tiffany reassured herself as she set to work watching the by now partially-dried splodge of horse-cum out of her crimson curls. Indeed, the dragons were likely to be more understanding about her preferences than most humans, if only because their understanding of human sexual behaviors remained rather cursory - after all, even those of the dragons that hadn't spent most of their lives locked behind the Utopia's mighty walls had known of humans only in a rather distant, often adversarial, fashion. Living alongside them was still rather... novel, for both parties. So really, her main concern was just the delay this necessary bit of hair-washing added...

A fancy envelope. Who'd send her a fancy envelope? Had it come from outside, with one of the semi-regular caravans? Seemed unlikely - the only person outside who knew where she was, was the old farmer from Karistad whom she'd lived with for a while after escaping captivity at the Island of the Amazons. She'd sent him a letter after settling into the Utopia, not wanting him to worry about her - after all, from his perspective, she'd simply disappeared without a trace one night.

She hadn't told him much, really - letting him know that she'd been pulled down to Hell and been stuck in slavery and torment_there_ for a lengthy while would hardly have calmed him. Instead, she'd just let him know that she'd gotten in a spot of trouble, been rescued by an old friend, and settled in a new place which was really nice and safe. No details about the Utopia, just enough that he could send a message back if he wanted to. But he'd hardly be sending it in a fancy envelope! No, couldn't be from outside. Had to be someone in the Utopia, using the castle's internal messenger-service. But who'd go to such trouble instead of just looking her up in person or leaving a verbal message with Verdi if they couldn't find her?

The questions kept bouncing around her head as she finished cleaning herself up, drying herself off, and finally doing the streaker's dash back to her room, leaving her stained clothes in the laundry-hamper. Some people took great pains to bring a clean set of clothes when they went to the baths, but even when she didn't have such a fine reason not to, Tiffany rarely bothered. What was the point of being coy, considering her occupation? Anyone who really wanted to see her naked need only make an appointment, and it wasn't much of a distance anyway - although half of it was across one of those huge, dragon-sized corridors that might as well be full-on causeways to a human.

Back in her room and still slightly moist, she exercised masterful self-control and wrapped a clean towel around her hair before collecting the envelope that waited just inside her door. Her eyes widened as she regarded it. 'Fancy' indeed! Jet-black paper, the high-quality kind that felt substantial and expensive between your fingers, with her name written across the front in fancy, golden script. There were little golden thingamajigs in the corners, too, just for decoration. What could this be about? She was almost hesitant to open it. Surely, it must have been delivered to her by accident... could there be someone else in the Utopia who shared her name, perhaps?

Still, after some dithering, she went ahead and opened it, and immediately her face brightened. It hadn't been an accident at all! She still wasn't very good at reading, especially not this kind of fancy, curly script, but she had no trouble recognizing the signature at the bottom. 'Anitra DragonRider'. It was from Anitra! Well, she'd still have to spend some time squinting and probably working herself to a minor headache getting through the actual letter, but if it was from Anitra, it couldn't be anything bad. The DragonRider was the most splendid person she'd ever met - someone who could intimidate an entire island of barbaric, sadistic Amazons into submission single handedly, someone who had fallen into Hell and thenjust proceeded to build an army there, before fighting her way back out.

Indeed, her own most recent misadventure - the whole mess involving Keltinor and Heaina - had been resolved literally within hours of the DragonRider returning from her seaside vacation. She'd sorted everything out, ensured that Keltinor could stay and continue his research, and prevented Heaina's actions from spilling over on the Equus community as a whole. Practically with a snap of her fingers! She'd seemed maybe a bit exasperated with Tiffany's ability to 'find trouble', as she'd put it, but what could she do? It wasn't as if she went looking for these situations. They just...happened.

As she painstakingly worked her way through the letter, her smile only brightened, until she found herself barely capable of resisting the urge to squeal with delight. Eagerly, she shook the envelope and found the small, white card that had been stuck in there along with the letter. Pulling out the coal-stick she used for her writing-practice, she carefully made an 'X' on the card, which then immediately disappeared in a puff of light-purple smoke, leaving her blinking in surprise. Then she grinned and jumped to her feet. She needed to prepare! The other Free Lovers would be able to help, surely. They were all so... worldly. Geiko, in particular, would definitely have some motherly advice to dish out...

Manushya smiled nervously as she answered the door. One of the - many - advantages to having powers of illusion was that, if someone should happen to knock on your door while you were buck-naked, you could instantly dress yourself in impenetrable illusions rather than having to scramble for actual, physical clothes - but it didn't really_change the fact that she was naked, and not expecting company. Fortunately, it _wasn't company - just some young courier from the castle, delivering a letter. She took it from him with a smile and a nod. It still weirded her out a bit, facing humans without disguising herself as one of them... she'd been brought up to maintain a peerless mask at all times, with the survival of her entire species at stake. This messenger-boy, though, hadn't turned a hair at her predatory appearance - presumably, he was used to running messages down to the Rakshasa village. She knew that there were still plenty of people up at the castle who tended to jump at the sudden appearance of a Rakshasa... but one could hardly blame them for their instincts. Familiarity would dull them eventually, she supposed - for better or worse.

Once the door had closed behind her again, she let the illusory dress fade away and regarded the delivery. Fancy black envelope, her name in golden script... with the word 'Trouble' written between the lines, at least to her eyes. Still, no point putting it off. Opening the envelope, she pulled the letter out and scanned it... her eyes almost immediately jumping to the signature at the bottom. Anitra. Of course. Memories of her first meeting with the perverted DragonRider flooded back, making her shiver. She still wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel about that woman. So much jumbled together...

Her meeting with Anitra had changed the entire fate of her species - taking them from a slow decline, seemingly just counting the days to extinction, to a state of cautious optimism. No longer forced to hide within a human population, their long-decayed society was starting to blossom again. Young people were meeting one another without careful, painstaking, covert work on the part of their parents, and cubs were rapidly being born. Under the dragons' protective wing, the Rakshasa could live and prosper once more! So from any objective standpoint, she - like the rest of her kind - should be endlessly grateful to the DragonRider.

But... it was kind of hard to get around the fact that their first encounter had involved Anitra blackmailing Manushya into being her and her draconic beau's personal sex-toy. They'd used and abused her in every imaginable way - and several un_imaginable ways to boot! She hadn't even had _words for half the things they'd done to her, or forced her to do for them. Her will had been entirely shoved aside, their days together nothing but a string of humiliations and torments. And pleasure. Oh so much pleasure. Which rather added another layer of complication to it all! Did the fact that she'd enjoyed most of what they did to her really excuse the fact that they hadn't bothered to ask?

And then there was the impact the whole thing had had on her life since then. All those days, spent sinking into such unspeakable depravity... and then it's just over. Anitra gets on her dragon and flies away, her parents get involved, there's a bunch of debates, and hardly any large objects being forced into any of her orifices at all. How do you just... shrug and move on after an experience like that? She had certainly never been able to figure it out.

Still, in the end, she supposed none of it really mattered. Regardless of how she personally felt, her entire species was indebted to Anitra, and the dragons who were their new hosts and protectors venerated her as a hero. She couldn't very well afford to insult someone like that by spurning her invitation, despite the strong suspicion that was growing in her gut... or maybe a little bit lower. Even though the situation had changed a lot - Anitra technically didn't have any kind of hold over her any more - she somehow couldn't convince herself that it would matter in the least. The moment the DragonRider - never mind Blake himself - grinned at her, she'd find herself on her knees and begging for them to abuse her any which way they liked. She'd taken some pains to avoid encountering them up to this point, but... apparently that wasn't an option anymore.

Finding the card in the envelope, she made the inevitable X, and grimaced as it instantly disappeared - no going back, no chance to change her mind. She'd have to talk to her mother about some of it, though probably best to leave out her suspicions as to what she was going to be in for. But first... thinking about it all had made her pussy itch and drool, and she'd be better able to think clearly once she'd gotten that taken care of. And thus, she swiftly returned to her bedroom - and her brother.

She found her dear sibling, not unexpectedly, exactly where she'd left him - bent over backwards on the collapsible rack she kept under her bed when he wasn't around. Firmly bound to the sturdy wooden structure, blindfold in place, a string of drool running from the corner of his gag-filled mouth. His fully-erect and unsheathed cock was standing proudly from his groin, twitching as it struggled with the broad leather cord tied so tightly around its base. Below, the slight tremors running through his uncomfortably trussed-up body kept the large weight suspended from his testicles swinging slightly.

Crouching down, she licked her lips as she took a closer look. His scrotum had grown at least an inch longer since she started playing with him. The skin looked bright-red and strained at the bottom, where the contours of his gonads could be clearly seen, the loop of leather above them keeping them firmly pushed against the bottom of his pouch. She blew lightly on them, sending renewed shivers through his helpless body, then leaned in to rasp her sandpaper-rough tongue across their tender surface. A deep groan, silenced by the gag, rolled through him in response.

Rising again, she nudged the lead weight forcefully with a toe, sending it swinging forcefully, pulling his bound testicles along for the ride. Only then - as he shuddered in pain before her - did she climb over his hips and sink down on his groin, letting his straining cock slide smoothly into her sopping-wet pussy. She didn't need to pull her labia apart or anything - her cunt had been virgin-tight when Anitra first got her hands on her, but but despite the 'flexibility-potion' they'd forced her to drink, the tender orifice had never fully recovered. It spread easily before any intruder, and even the most well-hung specimen of her own kind felt... underwhelming inside her. She knew, having gone to some pains to seek out the lucky lad, while still coming away disappointed.

Her brother was the only man she'd found any pleasure in since then... and even that was more psychological than physical. The sense of the forbidden, the taboo... and the various perverted contortions she could put him through. The intoxicating feeling of power that came from knowing that he was hers - completely under her spell, like she'd been under Anitra and Blake's back then. And it wasn't as if she was blackmailing him or anything - she_could,_ theoretically, seeing as he was the one who'd originally initiated their illicit relationship, but she'd never tried. Nonetheless, whenever he was between missions, he'd faithfully turn up at her hut, knowing full-well what awaited him there.

It was funny how quickly their 'relationship', if that was the right word, had developed. Originally, it had basically just consisted of her letting him use her ass as an outlet for his pent-up desires. But after her encounter with Anitra and Blake... well, she'd earned a lot_of highly varied sexual experience in a rather short time. So the next time she'd seen him, she'd... put it to good use. She'd shown him just how dirty, twisted, and _pleasurable sex could really be. He'd been... impressed. And also intimidated. Despite being her older brother, he was now far less 'experienced' than her. Nor was he a fast learner. She'd hoped that he'd rise to the occasion - grabbing her by the hair, pounding her ass, using his claws... treating her the way Anitra and Blake had. Giving her the same kind of ecstasy. But he hadn't. So she'd taken charge...

It was a different kind of ecstasy, this, but... pretty nice all the same. She moaned as she rode him, feeling the tiny spines bordering his cockhead scratching across her smooth, juice-slicked inner walls, and heard him groan in reply as her rhythmic movements added more energy to the swinging pendulum beneath. Leaning forwards, she let her claws toy painfully with his nipples as she ground their hips together, the leather cord encircling his base digging into her labia. "I bet you'd like to cum soon..." she whispered between hot breaths. "I bet you'd love to fill my womb with your seed again. Maybe this time you'll finally manage to knock up your baby sister, hmm?"

In truth, she kept rather careful track of her cycle, and only let him cum in her pussy when she was sure it was safe. Wasn't as surefire as a contraceptive potion - which were easily available around here - but the slight risk was what made it so fun. He knew_that she wasn't using contraceptives - and also that it wasn't _his_choice where his seed might wind up, or even if he was allowed to release it at all. Still, it probably _was time to give him some release. He'd been tied up like this, constantly taunted, constantly hard, since early this morning. And most of last night, he'd been wearing the chastity-belt with the tiny cage that wouldn't even let him get hard. No doubt, he was well and truly backed up.

Despite her frequent teasing, she usually finished him off with her ass or her mouth... but today, after reading that letter, she wanted to feel the thrill of the risk once again. Lifting herself just an inch, she reached down between her legs and cut the cord that encircled her brother's cock with one careful claw. He moaned and convulsed, struggling uselessly against his bonds as incomprehensible sounds emerged from his gagged muzzle. Even with that cord removed, it still wouldn't be easy for him to reach his climax, considering the state of his balls... but as she continued to grind against him, murmuring "Well, here's your chance, big brother... go ahead...", he finally got there. As the huge, long-accumulated load burst through his throbbing cock and up into her eagerly-waiting womb, she sighed and leaned back, running a paw over her belly. It was a safe day, of course, but you could never be sure...

Kylaees groaned and ran her obsidian-black nails through her long, white hair as she threw herself back into her seat. "Take charge, they said..." she muttered. "Lead a rebellion against the Kings of Hell, they said. Devour the heart of a Higher Devil, they said. Well, none of them ever mentioned how much damned paperwork it would all entail." Her desk was aflood with the stuff, most of it the red-on-black script of hellreed papyrus, the most practical form of home-grown paper. Here and there, a far-more-easily-red sheaf of black-on-white from their 'upstairs allies' in the Dragon Utopia, but most of it was internal.

Supply-figures. Communiques with allies both overt and covert all across the Seven Hells. Training-schedules. Recruitment-plans. Energy-flow projections. Armory inventory overviews. She was getting better at delegating, but most of it had to pass through her hands at some point. She was the one with the rank and title, and all that came with it. The first-ever Queen of Hell. Her original forces - the ones who had trained under Anitra, back when all of this had just been an impossible dream - had been forged in the fires of battle, and each and every one of them trusted each other with their very existence. But while they still formed the elite core of her forces, many more had streamed in since, and 'trust' did not come easy to demons. She was the one who had to judge who could be trusted, and the one who had to keep reminding everyone that they did trust each other. Even those who didn't know her personally believed in her, because of her reputation, accomplishments - and power. Without her, the Renegades would fall apart into a squabbling mob as old rivalries and bad blood reemerged. At least, that's what it felt like...

There was a light rap on the door, and she quickly straightened up and tried to look as if she hadn't just been staring numbly up at her office ceiling while repeatedly sighing, the paperwork unattended. "Enter." She immediately recognized the complying demon as one of the succubi currently partaking in the ongoing 'exploratory arrangement' with the Dragon Utopia, and she could furthermore deduce that she'd just returned from there. There was a mellow, satiated glow to her - Kylaees could practically taste the emotional energy emanating from her like an unseen light. Lust, desire, pleasure, joy... even some happiness, if she wasn't mistaken! All harmlessly harvested from eagerly cooperating humans - and demihumans - in the Utopia above.

The dragons had been quite nervous about the arrangement at first... but that was nothing compared to how worried she'd been! Most of the succubi available had gone through at least some of the 'old-school' training - the kind designed to turn them into insatiable, sex-crazed harlots who would draw in their targets with emanations of raw lust, and then proceed to suck them dry of every last drop of energy they contained, leaving little more than a shriveled and empty shell. And if even one of them fell back on old habits just once, it'd all be over.

But it'd worked out. Well, it was working out so far, she corrected herself. Still plenty of time for something to go disastrously wrong! But caution aside, it really was working out splendidly. Sure, every 'shipment' was a lot smaller than if the succubi had been draining lifeforce in addition to emotional energy - but it was a renewable source, a steady source, and there was still plenty of potential for growth in this particular trade-relationship. Why hadn't anyone else ever tried to do it like this before, she sometimes wondered. Were the Kings of Hell simply too short-sighted, too eager for a quick profit, to take the long view? Or had the highly specific circumstances that had given rise to the current trade-relationship with the World-Plane just never existed before?

With a polite bow, the succubus handed her an envelope. A message from the Utopia - not unusual. Since the succubi were going back and forth all the time anyway, they might as well carry messages back and forth too. Ongoing negotiations, requests for samples of local minerals, or even larger amounts of materials... the alchemists of the Utopia seemed to find infernal obsidian to be particularly interesting, and from what she'd heard, there were a number of experiments ongoing that might reveal new uses for it up there. All good - while not as omnipresent as the basalt, obsidian veins weren't hard to find, and the more things the above-worlders could use it for, the more valuable a trade-good it became.

This, however, didn't seem to be an order for more, not a reply to her most recent proposal. The envelope was black, albeit with golden script instead of the blood-red she was used to, and just by touching it she could tell it wasn't hellreed papyrus. Curiosity rising, she opened it and pulled out two sheafs of the fine, white paper she'd gotten used to seeing from above. The first was written in a rather formulaic way, she thought, and while the signature immediately got her attention, it... didn't make much sense to her. At all. Fortunately, the second page turned out to be a more casually-written, less fancy-looking letter from Anitra, explaining the circumstances and the relevant human traditions. It also let her know that arrangements had been made, provisionally, and permission obtained.

Even if she still found the whole thing a touch confusing - even with_the explanation - it was clearly too good to pass up. She'd only been to the World-Plane _once, and briefly at that. She still remembered it clearly, though - the taste of that light, almost ephemeral air. The sensation of parts of her body that had until-then lain dormant kicking in. She'd been thirsty - just for a short time, before she stepped back through the portal and the sensation faded. Anything that gave her an excuse to go back there was a priceless gift in her eyes.

But more importantly, it was a request from Anitra - without whom she'd still just be a rabble-rousing demoness flailing impotently at the misogynistic culture of the Seven Hells. So of course she'd go. A small card had been hiding between the pages of the letter, and as she drew an X on it with one fingernail, it shivered slightly beneath her touch. With the enhanced sensitivity that her violently-obtained royal blood had granted her, she could actually see the magic bound into the card's fibers reaching out, grasping for something that wasn't there, and then failing. The second page had warned that would probably happen, and she quickly rose from her desk and stepped out of her office.

Her secretary immediately looked up, and Kylaees handed her the card. "Make sure this goes through the portal at the next possible chance. Let the messenger know that it's likely to disappear as soon as it gets through, but if not, to see that it is delivered to the DragonRider personally." With this necessity out of the way, she continued towards the courtyard, where she suspected she'd probably find Marilith, her long-time second-in-command. After their most recent victory, the serpentine demoness had, herself, ascended to the ranks of the High Devils, earning the rank of Marquesa of Hell the same was she had earned her original Dukedom. She was well enough known - and respected - that she should be able to hold down the literal AND figurative fort for a day or so.

Ursula hummed to herself as she shimmied around her new den on all eight tentacles, swaying her hips to the rhythm of a half-forgotten song. She was still getting settled in, but her new digs were really_something. If any of the hypocritical fools back at New Atlantica heard that she'd fled the ocean and settled down in a lake instead, they'd probably laugh and feel superior - not that _that took much. But if they actually saw this lake... hah! Their jaws would hit the seafloor in an instant.

The bottom of the crater-lake above which the great castle of the Dragon Utopia soared was like an overturned jewel-box. Everywhere, massive gemstones rose in pure, crystalline formations, and seemingly every bit of exposed bedrock was shot through with gleaming veins of precious metals. The center of the lake, in particular, was home to a massive, chaotic crystalline growth that seemed to incorporate just about every precious stone known to man and merman alike. Through it all, slow and ancient streams of magic pulsed, tantalizingly hinting at the source of the Utopia's mysterious, endlessly-refilling mines.

And now, it was also home to Ursula the Sea-Witch! Or maybe Ursula the Lake-Witch, now. Kind of lacked a certain... something, she had to admit, but she could live with that. Certainly, the neighbors were a lot more open-minded than those she'd left behind - oh, not that they didn't take some convincing in order to appreciate the elegant artistry of her craft, but at least most of them were willing to accept the truth when it stared them in the face, and that was honestly a step up.

Of course, 'neighbors' was a relative term. She had the lake-bottom quite to herself - it was cool, dark and quiet down there, undisturbed and inviolate. Sure, large gemstones could be picked like fresh plums here... but ultimately, it was easier for the dragons to just dig them out of the crater-edge. The brown dragons were born diggers, and while the silver dragons were skilled swimmers, they didn't usually dive this far down, and there wasn't nearly as many of them either. People and dragons alike swam eagerly in the upper layers of the lake, where the water was warm and air never far away - but it was quite a long way between here and there.

Made for a bit of a commute, really - she had to swim all the way up to the surface, and use one of the handful of wooden platforms could be found around the waterline on some of the gargantuan pillars that held up the castle. From there, a winding staircase - with a nice, sturdy guardrail - led up around the exterior of said pillar, eventually terminating in a door that led to the castle's lowest levels. The whole thing had been erected relatively recently, as a convenience for the castle's smaller residents - bathing and swimming aside, simply taking tea on one of the platforms, in the castle's cool shadow and with a breathtaking view across the sapphire-blue lake, to the emerald-green crater-rim where countless dragons could often be found, sunning themselves, was a popular diversion for those energetic enough to brave the lengthy stairs.

Ursula herself wasn't terribly fond of stairs. Even though her customary human form was significantly lighter and fitter than her own, true shape, it was still quite a climb. Sometime soon, she'd have to crack her knuckles and conjure up an easier, more magical way to get from her lakebottom abode to the castle above. At least going the opposite way was easy - she never bothered with using the stairs for that, instead simply jumping from the top of the pillars and transforming on the way down. To a human, the impact with the lake-surface would likely be considered crushing, but for an octopoid like herself, it was a friendly embrace...

Mind, everything she'd considered about personal locomotion also applied to messages. If she needed to pass word to anyone up there, well, that was a chore and a half. But they could reach her simply by tying the message to a rock and dropping it near a designated buoy. As, indeed, had just happened, based on the dull 'thunk'-sound she heard from outside. She glanced up in annoyance, then back at her work, and sighed. It really was tremendous how much stuff she had to unpack. Especially when she had to grow the actual cupboards and closets to hold it first. Actually, on reflection, maybe a brief distraction from all this tidying up would be welcome. With a sigh, she set down the bottle she'd been inspecting - carefully, so as not to disturb the oily-black sea-cucumber that writhed within. It was a rare and valuable specimen, after all!

Sure enough, a suitable rock was waiting in front of her den, a black envelope tied to it with string. A slight, bubbly aura could be seen to surround it, as something that was either magic or an alchemical coating of some kind labored to keep the water from actually _reaching_said envelope, let alone its contents. Still, no saying whether said contents had received the same treatment, and the elaborate, gold script seemed to hint at a communication of some importance. Fortunately, conjuring up an air-bubble large enough to open the envelope and read the letter within was but a moment's labor for the newly-minted 'lake-witch'.

Upon finishing the enclosed letter, Ursula sighed, sending a cloud of bubbles towards the distant surface as she fondled the small card that had also been included. She vaguely knew of this particular, human tradition from her various exploratory trips to nearby harbor-towns while she'd still been living in the sea, but it all seemed rather meaningless to her. On the other hand, offending a local bigwig right after moving in seemed rather inadvisable. And on the third hand, depending on who else had received such an invitation, it could be be an excellent opportunity to do some good old fashioned networking.

On the fourth hand, she'd naturally have to go up into the castle for it, which meant using her human form, and she well remembered what happened last time the heroic Anitra had encountered that! Not that it had been unpleasant or anything, but... she wasn't really used to relinquishing control like that. Mind, on the fifth hand, it wasn't as if she'd exactly been besieged with eager suitors since she got here, despite the carefully-crafted attractiveness of her human form. Most of the people she worked with were too wedded to their craft to care about much of anything else, and besides that, the whole Utopia seemed to be positively teeming with beautiful young women who practically emanated sex wherever they went. Not just these 'Free Lovers', but also the Equus mares working as dragon-servants - among other things - and the literal sex-kittens from the Rakshasa enclave.

So, yes, having some sexy funtimes wouldn't really be too bad, regardless of who wound up on top. Though, on the sixth hand, she really ought to make sure any such sexytimes happened on her conditions, instead of just getting dragged along... or was that actually just a continuation of the fourth hand? She ran her fingers over the various tentacle-tips she'd been raising for a moment before giving up with an eye roll. In the end, there wasn't really any way she could say no, and as long as she kept her head, she might wind up profiting along the way. Besides, if what she'd heard recently held true...

As her smile widened, she made a snappy gesture with one hand - conjuring up a rather spectacular, golden feather-pen, which she then used to strike an X on the card. It immediately disappeared between her fingers - not surprising her in the least. She'd detected the magic woven into the card-stock the moment she pulled it from the envelope, after all. Still, a nice, subtle piece of work, and a good reminder of just how commonplace and easily-accessible magic was around here. Coming from somebody else, she might have taken it as a reminder that however impressive her witchcraft, she shouldn't get too big for her betentacled britches - there was more than enough magic concentrated above her head, in the great, soaring citadel, to completely overpower her a thousand times over. But knowing Anitra, if only through a single meeting and a few cursory encounters since, chances were she'd just decided it'd be convenient if the cards returned directly and immediately.

With that thought in mind, she turned on her tentacles and flowed back down into the den, where she roused her napping assistants with a sharp clap. "Flotsam! Jetsam! Come darling poopsies, mommy's about to get to work! Can't have a party without party-favors, after all!" Her laughter echoed as the two moray-eels obediently began to gather the needed ingredients - both from her new cupboards and from her enchanted valise, where many of her not-yet-unpacked tools remained. Already, several amusing ideas were percolating in her fertile brain. Oh, it would be a party, all right...

Ariel's eyes sparkled as she gazed out the window of her new chambers. This, she decided, was the kind of view one could only get on land. The stark cliffs, the teeming jungle, the clear blue sky... and below, the gleaming surface of the lake, like a mute reminder of where she came from. Stepping away from the windowsill she'd been leaning on, she spread out her arms and twirled around, singing wordlessly to herself, her practiced voice effortlessly spinning a hypnotic harmony. Her less-practiced legs, meanwhile, promptly stumbled over her faithful companion, sending her sprawling gracelessly to the ground.

She staggered back to her feet before Sebastian, summoned by the crash from the adjoining bathroom where he'd been relaxing in the sink, could start to interpret her pratfall as yet another good reason why trading in her perfectly serviceable tail for a pair of legs, of all things, was a terrible idea. The pessimistic crab had tagged along from back home as her 'political adviser', his candidacy helped by the fact that he was quite capable of managing on land without any great concession than the occasional bath.

Flounder, alas, was less fortunate, but her lifelong companion had been stubborn - nor was she thrilled with the idea of waving goodbye to him for months at a time. Plans for a travel-aquarium had been broached, before daddy had stepped in to solve the problem in his characteristically brusque manner. His vast power, channeled through the trident that was never far from his hand, allowed him to grant his darling daughter a perfectly serviceable, human-like pair of legs - and with an extra flick, he provided a full set of four_for Flounder to boot. He now wore the peculiar form of a small, well-fed dog... with yellow-and-blue stripes. He got more odd looks than _she did, but she didn't care - she was just so_immensely happy to be out on such a grand journey, across _land, meeting humans, while her dearest friends remained by her side.

With much petting and a kiss, she managed to still Flounder's complain about his role in the earlier pratfall, and soon her sparkling mood had once again infected him. There were such wonders to see here! The view was just the beginning! Still, as she had to remind herself regularly, she wasn't here to sight-see. She was the_ambassador_ of New Atlantica, here to represent her father and her people among humans and other land-dwellers. The dragons had graciously offered to help, providing her with both a base of operations here on land, and discreet contacts among the continent's various seaside kingdoms and empires. They had also already offered a few trade-agreements that even Sebastian couldn't find any fault with, though both of them had carefully avoided discussing them around Flounder. Fish, however friendly and cute they could be at times, were a stable food for many of the ocean's denizens, after all - and one could hardly begrudge the dragons an interest in undersea cuisine. Still, probably best not to rub his face in it...

Anyway, she'd soon have to leave, to attend a series of meetings across the continent - but until then, she'd enjoy the sights and sounds of the Dragon Utopia wholeheartedly. And with any luck, she'd have a chance to meet her new friend, Anitra the DragonRider, again! She'd originally planned to go see her as soon as she arrived, but once she'd had a chance to talk to the dragons, she'd belatedly realized how important the raven-haired woman was. No doubt, she was terribly busy with all kinds of important things - along with her advancing pregnancy - so Ariel had decided not to make a bother of herself.

Sebastian had complimented her on this decision, calling it 'part of growing up', and maybe it was, but it still made her sad that she was in the same castle as the dear friend who'd finally helped her realize her dream of visiting land, and yet hadn't even seen her. Just as she contemplated this, morosely stroking Flounder's sides - coarse and short-furred now, rather than being slick and scaly - there was a polite knock on the door, and she immediately jumped up from the chair - such an intriguing invention! - she'd been sitting in. The unfortunate Flounder went flying, complaining all the way, but she was already reaching for the door, eager to find out who it might be.

It was, as it turned out, simply a messenger - but what he carried was more interesting. An envelope, black, with her name written on it in gold. She still found the paper used on land a bit odd and coarse, quite different from the slick, seaweed-based paper she was used to back home - but then, it stood to reason that it'd be different. This paper, after all, supposedly just about dissolved in water! Idly contemplating this strangeness, she opened the envelope and drew out the letter within. Two sheets, one looking somehow more_official_ than the other... and they were both signed by Anitra!

With eager intensity, she read her way through both letters, her eyes sparkling with glee. Even the first one sounded amazing, if a bit confusing - it was a chance to see Anitra, after all, which was_exactly_ what she'd just been wishing for! The second one, helpfully, explained the relevant human tradition that lay behind the invitation, and made her feel even better. Flounder, who had swiftly recovered from his tumble once he'd realized that she hadn't noticed his whines, jumped up to see what she was reading, and Sebastian swiftly followed suit, thoughtfully rubbing his chin with one bright-red claw.

"I'm sorry, but it looks like only I have been invited..." she replied regretfully when Flounder queried. It really was a shame, but one had to be graceful about these things. She was less_sad that Sebastian wouldn't be joining her either. She knew that he cared for her a lot, but he _could be kind of a... what was that brilliant, human expression she'd learned recently? Wet pillow? No, wet blanket, that was it! He could be kind of a wet blanket sometimes, and nobody wanted those at a party.

Jumping up again, she paced back and forth for a bit, reading and rereading the letters, before putting the included card down on the writing-desk that had been included with the room, and carefully putting down an X. It promptly vanished in a puff of smoke, prompting a delighted laugh from her - these land-dwellers came up with the most amazing things! Then, she did another quick twirl, and crouched down next to the dejected-looking Flounder. "Oh, come on, don't be like that..." she gently chided. "You might not be able to join me at the party, but you can come with me right now - I need to get a dress for the party, and a gift, and... umm..." she paused and scanned the second, more explanatory, letter again, then shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure I can just ask one of the humans, they'll know..." With that conclusion, she merrily skipped out of her chambers, with Flounder and Sebastian in sharp pursuit.

Anitra's eyes pivoted towards her desk as one more dull *pop* sounded. "That'll be the last one..." she grunted as she pulled herself a bit more upright in her chair. "Direza?" The drow-girl immediately jumped up from her habitual spot by Anitra's side and went to the desk to check on the small pile of cards. "They're all coming!" She announced triumphantly a moment later, after having quickly leafed through the lot. Anitra nodded, grimaced a bit, then shrugged. "Well, looks like we've got a proper baby-shower on our hands, then!"

Blake, sitting nearby in the catlike fashion he tended to favor when focused on something, lifted an eyebrow at the tone. "Still sore that you can't invite your old friends from Karistad?" He asked gently, with only a slight undertone of that special 'stop-being-silly-dear' attitude that tended to remind Anitra that, in addition to being a huge, jet-black dragon containing an ancient fragment of a long-forgotten god, he was also a man. She threw him a nasty look, then quickly recanted as she once again reminded herself that she was only being testy because of the pregnancy - be it the continued loss of mobility and general discomfort or the various interesting things it was doing to her brain, according to the healers.

"Maybe a bit..." she admitted, grimacing again. "It just seems... wrong. We talked about stuff like that, back in the day. About how we'd one day be getting together for weddings, baby-showers, baptisms and so on. But I get it, I really do. We can't fly people from across the world here, to the still-somewhat-secret Dragon Utopia, just to attend my baby-shower. Gotta make do with whoever happens to be here already. And honestly, with Ursula and Ariel belatedly thrown in, it's still going to be bigger than I'd expected. Not to mention more festive, if I know Ursula right!"

Blake nodded readily, his attention once again refocusing from her displeasure to his ongoing project. "I'm sure you'll have a splendid time at this... baby-shower thing..." he replied casually. The whole idea was clearly quite alien to Blake, and indeed dragons in general - and it hadn't taken much explaining for her to understand why. Dragons very great believers in the old adage about not counting your chickens 'till they've hatched - since only a small percentage of their eggs ever hatched. After a mating-flight, a female dragon might produce a clutch of eggs, easily a dozen or more, but only maybe one or - in rare cases - two would ever actually hatch. Quite often, none would. All their celebrations, thus, were centered around the hatching - which, for a human, equated to birth.

But Blake wasn't going to argue against the baby-shower just for that. If anything, he seemed quite pleased that she'd found something to occupy herself with, once they'd returned from the seaside and sorted out the whole Bicorn-mess that had been waiting for them on arrival. He'd readily lent his support for the preparations, and was quite prepared to clear out of their shared chambers to make room for the girls-only affair. Indeed, he had grandiosely agreed to lend her his favorite servant and sex-toy for the duration... as he put it. In reality, Anitra was hoping to celebrate Melora as much as herself during the festivities. Especially since it increasingly seemed like she'd have to rely on the mare's services as a wet nurse.

Her own breasts had grown at least a size and a half since her pregnancy started to gain steam, and they got rather sore sometimes. Indeed, she had started to produce milk... just not very much of it. Direza was eagerly - to put it mildly - helping her to both drain the minuscule build-up and encourage further production, but the effort didn't seem to be paying much of a dividend. Well, other than in terms of the drow-elf's ecstatic happiness as she lay in Anitra's embrace, suckling tenderly on her pierced nipples... which wasn't a small consideration, really. Anitra rather enjoyed finding ways to make Direza happy without making it seem like she was _trying_to do anything of the sort.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Melora already seemed prepared to produce a small dairy-farm's worth of output on command. Her tits had been impressive before, but by now they were massive, swollen melons that lay heavily on her distended belly, pressure constantly growing within them. She was not, of course, allowed to milk herself without Blake's permission, resulting in the milk building up to the point where the veins stood out enough to be visible even through the thin, fine coat that covered all but the nipples - while _they_drooled a steady drip-drop of thick, fat milk even without anyone touching them. No doubt, they also ached something awful, but that was just par for the course for the masochistic mare.

Alas, once Blake heard from the healer that, if left to sit for too long, the milk could curdle within the breasts and cause all kinds of complications, he had to give up his plan to simply leave Melora with this aching pressure until the children were born. But he'd rallied quickly, and found a suitable alternative. Thus, he was currently focusing his attention on the wheel he was carefully turning with a single outstretched talon. A wheel attached to a remodeled sausage-press, which was encasing Melora's hefty knockers in an anything-but-tender embrace at the moment.

Two iron plates, each covered in a pattern of flat pyramids, were being inexorably forced closer together with each turning of the wheel. The creaking of the screw was followed by a gurgling sound as yet another stream of milk was wrung from the tortured tits, falling into an already half-full trough. The already-sore breasts were steadily being flattened, sending pained shudders through their owner as she knelt obediently before the instrument of torture. Underneath her huge belly, her legs were spread, and - in keeping with Blake's orders - she was furiously masturbating with a hugely thick, spike-covered dildo whose only merciful feature was its relative shortness.

The press was sturdily built, and between Blake's massive strength and the physical integrity of Melora's swollen breasts, there wasn't much contest. The torture wouldn't stop until the two bulbous orbs had been literally flattened, like wrung-out oranges. The last few spurts tended to be more blood than milk. Funny how that kind of direct physical trauma could be so easily reversed with a healing-spell from Direza or just a basic healing-potion, while the kind of deep-seated infection that might have resulted from leaving her unmilked for months could have caused far greater headaches.

Once Direza's magic had restored Melora's ruined breasts, her beloved nipple-rings - which were removed for each milking - would be returned to their proper place, and quickly run through their gamut of torturous effects to make sure they still worked. It would not, Anitra knew, be terribly long before milk was again leaking out from around the edges of the two nipple-encircling rings. The thought once again reminded her of the still-unsolved problem she was dealing with in that regard. Direza had no trouble suckling around the beautifully-sculpted rings that pierced Anitra's own nipples, but she wasn't sure an infant would be quite as flexible - and even though she almost certainly wouldn't be able to properly feed her child alone, she still wanted to do what she could.

And that meant finding a way to remove the rings for nursing. Tearing them out was an option - her nipples could regenerate from the resulting damage quite quickly, even without the benefit of external magic - but the problem would then be getting them back on_again. Theoretically, a sharp blade could resolve this - a cut in the nipples, replacing the rings, and then letting the flesh heal around them - but would the rings still work if she did that? Besides, there_had to be some way to just open the damned things, dammit - just like Blake could make the otherwise-immovable rings Melora wore fall off with a single, arcane word. As of yet, though, none of the Utopia's artificers or enchanters had been able to figure it out - at best, they'd been able to agree that cutting the rings away and replacing them in the same fashion would be likely to disrupt the enchantment.

Well, she'd worry about that after the party. "At least Kylaees will be coming - you weren't quite sure about that, as I recall." Blake continued as he turned the wheel another notch, simultaneously squeezing out a spurt of blood-flecked milk and a groan of pain from Melora. Ignorant of her wandering mind, he was clearly still trying to comfort his fussy, easily-annoyed mate. "Well, yes - that's something, I suppose!" She replied, with somewhat forced cheer. "At least with the new portal established, she might as well be living right here in the castle, too. Just on a really, _really_deep basement-level!"

She then glanced over at Direza, who was waiting faithfully by her side, ready to leap to Melora's aid once her torture was over. "I don't suppose either of you two have made any female friends here, who might flesh out our guest-list?" she asked lightly, despite Melora clearly not being in any condition to reply to questionnaires right at that moment. But the two of them tended to stick together, when they weren't waiting on Blake and Anitra hand and foot, so chances were that Direza would know if Melora had managed to make any outside friends.

Alas the reply was an awkward, apologetic shrug. "Not that I know of, Mistress. We keep to ourselves, mostly. Nobody is in any hurry to make friends with a drow, and I think Melora actively avoids associating with her fellow horse-people as much as she can. Though, it's not like we're always together..." Anitra nodded glumly, unsurprised despite that final hedging. She'd vaguely noticed Melora's reluctance to mingle with her own kind, though she wasn't quite sure why. Wasn't her place, really - and Blake didn't seem to care either. "But... what about that blue dragon who flew with us on the trip to the Herdlands?" Direza quickly continued, clearly worried that she'd disappointed her beloved mistress. "Umm... Cerulea, wasn't it?"

Anitra considered it for a bit, then shook her head. "She's one of_Blake's_ friends, not mine. I've no doubt she'd turn up if I invited her, but it'd purely be to avoid annoying him. And if that was what I was looking for, I daresay I could rustle up enough young dragonesses to fill the room to capacity..." "And then some!" Blake interjected with a naughty grin, prompting an eye roll from her - coupled with a vague sting of something that_might_ have been jealousy. Both of them had cultivated a fair few casual fuckbuddies among the opposite-gendered dragons, but considering her situation, Blake was currently getting a lot more use out of those associations than she was.

Then a thought seemed to strike him, and even as he turned the wheel one more time - bringing the tit-press steadily closer to the point where Melora's bounteous breasts would be not merely squished, but outright crushed - he scratched his chin with his free hand. "Actually, since Direza mentioned that trip... what about Holly Short? Artemis Fowl's invisible bodyguard from that little venture, you know?" In all honesty, Anitra had entirely forgotten about the Seelie-Fae, but now that she'd been reminded, she quickly found a better justification than that for not having sent the girl an invitation. "I didn't really get to know her very well during that trip, since she was mostly off scouting... but I probably would_have invited her, if it wasn't for the fact that she seems to be at least semi-monogamous with Artemis. Considering what kind of..._festivities I'm planning on, her presence could be a touch awkward."

Blake raised an eyebrow and chuckled. "Indeed? Suddenly, I'm starting to regret that my presence won't be required. Still, I see your point - and besides, while I wouldn't call any of your guests unreliable, a couple of them can be a bit... air-headed, at times. And Holly Short's very existence is still supposed to be a secret." Then he glanced down at the subject of his ongoing torture. "Of course, I suppose we could try to actually ask my favorite servant herself... once she's in a slightly better condition to actually answer."

Thus, the discussion was momentarily tabled as the two of them finished going through the motions. At the end, the crushed layer of fatty meat that had been Melora's breasts was maybe half an inch thick, and she was shuddering constantly as she continued to spastically pound her pussy with the spiked dildo, lubricated by now with a thin, but steady stream of blood. She watched with feverish, half-focused eyes as Blake lapped up the contents of the trough - her thick, creamy milk, tinged deep pink by the copious amounts of blood that had flowed from her at the end - like an oversized cat. Anitra couldn't quite tell whether the mare was cumming repeatedly, or just near-paralyzed by agony - not that there necessarily was much difference for her.

Only after Blake had finished slurping up the harvest, was she released from the torture-implement and Direza allowed to quickly approach her, ready to undo the damage with a quick healing-spell. It was a grim sight indeed, as the sausage-press was opened and Melora allowed to lean back at last, her breathing short and gasping. The two bulbous melons had been reduced to empty, flattened sacs of meat covered in burst blood-vessels, with a coloration and integrity reminiscent of a bloody steak. They laid flat against her pregnant belly, slowly leaking blood and other, slimier liquids, ruined beyond belief... but not beyond magic's reach. A chanted prayer of healing from her fellow servant caused the two slabs of meat, indented with the shape of the pressure-plates that had crushed them, to miraculously inflate as the tissue within repaired itself, restoring their integrity. The milk-ducts, of course, were left empty... for now.

Once her tits had resumed their original, globular shape - though they still clearly throbbed and ached - and the flow of blood from her torn pussy had been stilled, her senses gradually returned to her and she was posed the same question that Direza had been. Initially, she seemed to come up just as empty as her drow colleague, but after her enchanted nipple-rings - removed for the duration of the torture-session - were reattached, she suddenly blinked and wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully. "Well... I suppose there's Gisela..."

More in-depth questioning from the suddenly-curious people around her quickly revealed more details. Gisela Goodsong was a jeweler, invited to the Utopia for her masterful skill at exceedingly fine engraving and similar detail-work, which also made her useful to enchanters - be it finely carved magical runes or gemstones placed with finicky precision, her skills were much in demand among those enchanters who didn't do their own craft work. Melora had met her during some of her errands, and struck up a loose friendship.

"I am... fairly sure she was the one who crafted these, actually..." Melora commented with a gesture towards the rings surrounding her nipples, coquettishly glancing up at Blake, who grinned broadly in reply. "The enchanter didn't say who had crafted the rings themselves, but she seemed to recognize them." Of course, it was indeed perfectly in character for him to have sent his masochistic servant off to personally pick up the tools of her future torture. Anitra, meanwhile, scratched her cheek thoughtfully. "Well... how do you think she'd react to getting invited to a... well, orgy, ultimately?" All of the women she'd invited to far were ones she'd had sexual encounters with in the past - save for Tiffany, come to think of it, but she had developed an extremely liberal attitude towards sex all on her own. On the other hand, it wasn't really the kind of thing you'd generally invite some casual marketplace acquaintance to...

Melora, however, shrugged noncommittally. "Well, she is a halfling... and she's hit on me more than once..." This made Anitra grin and nod, suddenly warming to the idea. She hadn't encountered any halflings during her past adventures, but she'd seen a few back during her long-ago youth in Karistad, mostly on market-days. And she'd certainly heard the whispered, blush-inducing rumors about their racial proclivity towards good drink, fine foods, and... other pleasures of the flesh. Halflings, everyone knew, could party like nobody else, and between the convivial company they offered and their relative harmlessness, they were one of the few races that were welcomed in all but the most insular and bigoted of human lands.

She almost reached for her writing-tools - or rather, almost called on Direza to fetch said tools - before thinking better of it. The fancy paper and golden script were for her invitations. If this halfling-girl was to join, it would be as Melora's guest. Something she richly deserved - after all, she was hardly any less pregnant than Anitra was, even if she did, to Anitra's steadily escalating annoyance, persist in carrying it far better. "Well, then, get dressed and go sound her out!" She suggested with a shrug, sinking into her chair again. "If it sounds like she'd be interested, invite her to come. It's not a party until the halflings get there, as the saying goes... do halflings have baby-showers, d'ya suppose? Probably - they're said to seize any possible excuse to celebrate, after all."

Soon enough, the appointed day arrived, with the final preparations hastily finished in the nick of time. Blake took himself off with a winking rejoinder to 'enjoy yourself, dear' - with no particular word about how he would spend the day, but then, it didn't take much imagination to figure out that he was planning to fulfill the wet dreams of a handful of his moon-eyed admirers among the young, pretty, female dragon population. Anitra didn't mind, of course - she fully intended to have at least as much fun today as he would.

It was a bit harder to read Melora's mood. Technically, the party was as much for her as for Anitra, but since it wouldn't involve her beloved Blake, she was unlikely to truly enjoy it. Well, Anitra had an ace up her sleeve for that particular problem, but for now, the mare seemed to be masterfully trying to conceal her glumness as the great door closed behind Blake, while she and Direza finished decking the catering-tables with various snacks, drinks and goodies. Soon after, the guests began to filter in, and the obligatory rounds of introductions and welcomes followed.

Other than Ursula and Ariel, none of the guests knew each other - Tiffany_had_ technically seen Kylaees before, but only very briefly, as she was half-pulled, half-carried from the demonic slave-quarters to the portal that would take her back to the World-Plane - choking and coughing all the way. As they - and the rest - were officially introduced to one another, Anitra carefully gauged their moods and tempers, trying to decide how best to proceed.

Tiffany seemed cheery as usual, though it seemed a bit more forced at the moment, as if she was trying to cover her underlying nervousness at the august company she found herself in. Manushya seemed on guard, standing up very straight, crossing her arms across her chest a lot of the time, and carefully avoiding meeting Anitra's eyes. Kylaees seemed nervous as well, though clearly for a different reason - it was obvious that she was desperately eager to make a good first impression, both on the rest of Anitra's friends, and on mortals in general. Ursula was, as always, completely self-possessed and comfortable, swaying the hips of her slinky human disguise with aplomb and wearing a mischievous smile that seemed to hint at various naughty secrets. Ariel was wide-eyed and upbeat, and already seemed to be hitting it off well with Tiffany.

And then there was Gisela Goodsong, Melora's sole guest - although, really, several of the others had spent just as much time with the mare as with Anitra during their earlier encounters - who had delivered an extravagant, eyebrow-waggling bow before Anitra's 'throne' as she introduced herself. "Gisela Goodsong, at your service your dragonridership! Jeweler and engraver ex-_traordinaire! Much obliged for your invitation - _delighted to be here, though seeing as this is a party and all, my entire species would gleefully line up to kick my shapely behind if I was anything less!" She was hard to get a read on, especially since this was their first meeting - but on the surface of it, her mood seemed to be most succinctly describable as 'a halfling at a party'. Already she had raided the drink- and snack-tables with aplomb, entirely undeterred by the fact that - what with her late addition to the guest-list - her diminutive height hadn't really been taken into consideration when the party was planned. Presumably, she was used to it - on a cultural as well as personal basis.

Physically speaking, she was... undeniably attractive, Anitra thought as she ran a critical eye over the young woman. Based on what she knew of Halfling longevity, she was probably in her thirties or forties, still short of middle-aged for their kind, and she certainly still hadn't started going to seed. Her honey-blond hair and sparkling blue eyes nicely accentuated a face that was more sensual than beautiful, and that impression continued from the neck down - the dress she wore was of a simple cut, as befitted a skilled craftswoman, but flattered her figure nicely. Her curves, thus contained, were undeniably fetching - not that this was unusual for her kind. She was, essentially, the equivalent of a curvaceous human woman scaled down to half-size in height, without losing an inch anywhere else. The term 'built like a brick shithouse' came to mind, for all that Anitra honestly had no idea where the hoary phrase came from, nor why it was generally considered complimentary.

First impressions and introductions aside, there was the inevitable, slightly-awkward matter of the gifts. After all, the general _idea_of the baby-shower was for female friends of the expecting to bring her the things she'd need in her incipient life as a parent, along with generous dollops of feminine sympathy. For most people, this was far from symbolic - for your average peasants and servants, a secondhand crib or a stack of hands-me-down diapers delivered by an older acquaintance who no longer needed them could make all the difference in the world, while for the slightly-better-off burghers, skilled craftsmen, low-tier merchants and similar middle-class individuals, it was more of a convenience than a necessity - but still a handy way to secure their unborn child a greater selection of toys, diversions and clothes than they might have been otherwise able to afford. And of course, for the rich and the powerful, it was largely a symbolic affair, a chance for their various fellow rich-and-idle acquaintances to show off their ostentatious wealth with extravagant gifts that were decidedly unlikely to be appreciated by the still-unborn child for a great many years to come...

None of those models really applied in the currency-free Utopia. Anitra - like every other resident - could literally obtain whatever she needed simply by deciding that she did need it, and requesting it from an appropriate craftsman. Nor could she be impressed with extravagances, obviously. This left the gift-giving as a largely symbolic affair, though some of her guests nonetheless managed to deliver something she hadn't realized she'd need - while others contented themselves with simply delivering a point.

Manushya was noticeably in the later category. Her gift was a decent-sized animal-hide, covered in luscious, golden fur, dotted with spots of inky black and sporting areas of creamy white along the edges. "I claimed it myself, from one of the larger jungle-predators..." she commented with a raised eyebrow as she handed it over. "Though of course, I had some help in cleaning and curing it." Certainly, it would have many uses - from crib-insulation to providing a soft playing-surface for a toddler - but mostly, it was a clear 'I am a terrifying predator, in case you forgot' rejoinder. Anitra accepted it with a beatific smile, and took advantage of the occasion to finally catch the Rakshasi's eyes with her own. What she saw there, hiding just under the surface, only made her smile widen.

Ariel's gift clearly had no hidden motives behind it - nor was it much of a surprise; a splendid conch, one of several that she'd brought from her homeland as gifts for ambassadors and similar dignitaries. "If you hold it up to your ear, you can hear the ocean!" She bubbled. "It always calms me down... maybe it will do the same for your child!" Well, it was worth a shot, Anitra had to agree after having sampled the gift for herself, and heard the familiar rush of waves lapping upon a shore from its depths.

If nothing else, she'd certainly try it before she used Ursula's_gift. The sea-witch, slim and shapely in her human disguise, handed her a tall bottle of a strange, smoky-purple liquid, with a lid that turned out to include a meticulously-crafted pipette for carefully measuring out the contents. "A sleeping-draught..." Ursula explained, her smile wide and self-assured. "Perfectly safe and harmless. A single drop in a bottle of milk, and your little treasure will be out like a light. Although, if what I've heard about draconic resistance is true, you _may need a few extra drops, on reflection."

Anitra's replying gaze was eloquent in its distaste, but Ursula laughed it off. "Oh, don't look at me that way, darling... just you wait and see. It may seem unthinkable to you now, but after a couple of weeks, you'll be sending me prayers of thanksgiving, trust_me..." Recalling, suddenly, what it had been like when her baby brother had been born - eternities ago, it seemed, though really only an odd handful of years - she found herself wondering if the smirking sea-witch might not have a point. "I trust I don't have to tell you how many pieces you'll find yourself sliced into if it turns out to be anything _less than completely safe..." she thus replied severely as she put down the bottle beside the other gifts. Ursula met this grave warning with equanimity. "Darling, I told you the first time we met - people come to me when they're_desperate_. How many sleep-deprived mothers do you think I've had visiting over the years? Merfolk may go about producing them somewhat differently, but the final result is just as noisy and fussy as anything you can find on land... and none of those customers ever complained! Well... not about the product, anyway..." The reminiscing grin that spread across her lips would have fit better on her true, broad-chinned face than on the slender, traditionally-pretty face of her human disguise, and Anitra quickly reassured herself that she would only resort to that potion in _direst_need.

Kylaees' gift, however, seemed to be one she - or, more likely, Melora and Direza - would be resorting to quite frequently. At first, she couldn't help but raise a mystified eyebrow when the, by now extremely human-like she-devil, handed her... a stone. A very lightweight, porous-looking stone, dark-gray in color and certainly unfamiliar, but still just a stone. The explanation, however, soon had her nodding along eagerly. "It's hell-pumice..." Kylaees began, pointing at the stone "...and only a sample. It's not hard to come by, so I'll be able to ship loads of it through along with the Utopia's orders easily enough."

Its value, as it turned out, lay in its preternatural absorbency - once it was crushed into a coarse powder, something that took remarkably little force. The demons had historically used the resulting grit to 'clean up' after various 'events', from torture and executions to gang-rapes and succubus training-sessions. It seemed capable of containing incredible amounts of all kinds of bodily fluids, while simultaneously neutralizing any kind of odor. "I was thinking, if you put some between two layers of cloth..." she said speculatively, clearly still somewhat tentative in her understanding of human bodily functions. Certainly worth a try, Anitra thought - and no matter what, it would certainly be very helpful in handling the ickier parts of parenthood. And possibly other, sexier things too, now that she thought about it.

There was a secondary gift too, though - more for Anitra than for her unborn child; The collar she had worn during her sojourn in hell, still glowing vaguely with its intertwined enchantments. "I thought you might like it as a souvenir? You left in somewhat of a hurry back then, after all." Anitra gratefully collected it - certainly, her trip to the Infernal Planes hadn't been a picnic, but it hadn't been all bad, either, and she'd made a few good friends down there. More to the point, affectionate value aside, she could think of a number of uses for the collar's _secondary_enchantment. The one designed to supply slaves' dietary needs by way of the infernal energy that pumped through that entire plane of existence like life's blood wouldn't work up here - but the _other_one, the one designed to keep the slaves pliant, obedient, and eager to please... that should still work just fine.

As for Gisela Goodsong, she was the first one to specifically bring two_presents, for _both of the expecting mothers - not that most of the other gifts wouldn't be equally useful for both of them, of course. A pair of tiny, elegantly-engraved silver rattles, one decorated with soaring dragons, and the other with wild horses prancing through meadows. Her own handiwork, of course. Melora was downright reluctant to accept the gift, having been perfectly happy to stay in the background while Anitra accepted the other presents on behalf of both of them, but Gisela didn't let her get a hoof to the ground. "Shush, you!" she remarked, with a playful punch to Melora's generous hips. "Around here, silver's literally as common as dirt, so don't you start acting like your kid doesn't deserve something shiny to play with just as much as hers!"

That pretty much ended the argument before it could start - and left Tiffany as the last one to deliver presents. She, too, had brought two separate ones, but nonetheless seemed acutely embarrassed, perhaps feeling that she needed to live up to the example of those who'd gone before her and failing. Anitra, however, felt differently, and couldn't help giggling in delight when she saw what the unassuming farm-girl had brought. It was a severely-deformed and particularly dopey-looking stuffed dragon, sewn together from various scraps of fabric and irresistibly cuddly. A similar toy was handed to Melora, who also couldn't help cracking a smile - though hers was a stuffed horse, of course.

"Umm... I talked to some of my friends in the Free Lovers, and they said I should make something by hand because it would be 'more meaningful', but I'm not a craftswoman or anything... I just know a bit about sewing, from repairing clothes and such. They helped me, too, and gathered the scraps and stuff..." her voice trailed off, her feet rubbing together, while both Anitra and Melora rushed to reassure her that they were delighted by her gift, and that their children no doubt would be just as happy to have something so adorable to snuggle up to in their cribs.

With the gifts thus dispensed with, the party settled down for a bit as guests chatted, mingled, and preyed on the contents of the catering-tables. Anitra largely limited herself to the former, ensconced in her comfy chair and unwilling to rise without a damn good reason - considering how swiftly and loudly her feet, ankles, legs, back, and various other parts of her physiology would start complaining if she did. But most of the guests were happy to drift past said chair now and again, and Direza eagerly fetched whatever food or drink she desired, so it didn't hamper her enjoyment much at all.

Now, however, she was faced with the problem of how to best nudge the party towards the next phase of the festivities in a non-awkward fashion. Somehow, just shouting "Okay, now let's all get naked and start having sex!" just seemed... entirely too crude, to say the least. As it happened, however, somebody else soon took that problem out of her hands. Ursula, possibly in a particularly festive mood after sampling several items from the drinks-table, had been spending a fair while exchanging increasingly innuendo-laden banter while Tiffany slipped deeper into fits of giggles with every double entendre. Finally, she threw her head back and laughed dirtily. "Oh, enough of all this beating about the bush! Come on, girls, let's get this party started!"

Anitra, who had been listening in on the impressively suggestive wordplay with her inhumanly-sharp hearing and a broad smile, lifted her eyebrows in surprise as Ursula pulled one of the fragile bubble-flasks she'd seen during her first visit to the sea-witch's cavern out of seemingly nowhere. Its contents seemed to be rather volatile - half foaming liquid, half fog, with a few good shakes of Ursula's hand whipping more of the former into the later. With a smooth, powerful movement somewhat reminiscent of a shot-put, suggesting that she still possessed all her regular strength despite the slender build of her human disguise, she sent the bottle arching up into the air, its now fully-vaporized contents straining against its thin prison... and soon making good its escape as the bottle popped like the bubble it actually was, releasing a rapidly-expanding fog that seemed to change color from deep purple to light blue as it spread.

It never reached Anitra. Direza, who had spent most of the festivities so far hovering at her mistress' right hand, hoping for a chance to bring her food or drink on request, reacted swiftly and instinctively to the perceived threat, erecting a bubble of magical energy around the two of them in an instant. With one hand on the platinum symbol hanging from her slender throat and the other imperiously outstretched, she maintained the shield as they waited for the fog to dissipate, both of them struggling to peer through the roiling mist to see what had become of their friends. There were shrieks coming from within it - but they sounded more like exclamations of surprise and consternation than screams of fear or pain, which helped Anitra's suddenly-speeding heart to calm down. Whatever the alchemical bomb had contained, it had apparently been more mischievous than insidious...

As the smoke finally cleared, both Anitra and Ursula herself got an eyeful of the results - at which point the latter's cackling laugh suddenly petered out. The intended effect of the fog was abundantly clear; somehow, it had vaporized or dissolved all clothes it touched, while leaving everything else - including the tablecloths, pillows, and other non-cloth fabrics in the area - untouched. Probably very impressive, from an art-of-magic standpoint, Anitra figured - clearly, Ursula still loved to show off. Several of the guests were left milling about buck-naked, bare scraps of their dresses clinging to their skin here and there, with nothing to cover themselves with save their hands. Several... but far from all. Actually, with Direza's speedy defense added to the equation, it didn't even come out to half.

Tiffany had certainly been affected. The bright-red dress that had previously been hugging her impressive curves and complementing her hair was all gone now, exposing both the well-kept little tuft of crimson fluff between her legs, and the vast collection of freckles that cascaded down over her now-bare shoulders and the upper parts of her impressively perky tits. Gisela Goodsong had fared no better, with the disappearance of the little black dress, plunging neckline at all, revealing everything it had previously been hinting at... including the fact that she clearly wasn't shy about making use of her own products. Both of her nipples sported silver barbell-piercings, the knobs at each end that would normally have been simple spheres of metal instead being tiny pearls. Between her short legs, more metal gleamed, though the exact extent of her piercings in that department couldn't be determined as long as she was standing.

Melora's new dress was gone too, a fact that she seemed fairly unperturbed about. Nothing in her admittedly limited wardrobe fit her at the moment, so she'd requested something suitable from one of the Utopia's tailors. No doubt the gentleman - who had, after all, earned an invitation to the Utopia on the basis of his skills - could have provided her with something truly exceptional, given half a chance - but Melora had no desire to stand out at the party, nor did she have the time to wait for any kind of fine detail-work, so after pressing the tailor for a bit, he'd coughed up a simple, straightforward maternity-dress, of the sort that one would have expected to find adorning the wife of a moderately prosperous land-owner or merchant. Now it was gone, its existence and purpose mayfly-brief, and its owner clearly didn't care much.

That, however, was the entire extent of the dramatic fog-bomb's effects. Manushya's dress - a rather stylish and daringly-cut piece in creamy-white that blended nicely with her belly-fur - was completely unruffled, not even damp, and the Rakshasi was gazing over at Ursula with a fuzzy eyebrow raised in challenge. Kylaees was looking slightly more affected. The dress she wore was jet-black and surprisingly conservative in its cut - and at the moment, it was also hissing and steaming slightly. It appeared as if the fog was trying to eat through whatever strange, hell-born fabric the dress had been crafted from - trying, and failing. Ursula herself, meanwhile, had presumably secured her own dress - a black, strapless-and-backless affair rather reminiscent of her habitual wear, albeit giving off a very different impression attached to the slinky 'Vanessa' - against the effects of her weapon.

"Tough crowd..." she now mumbled, eyeing the various dresses that had, through various means, survived her assault. Anitra, meanwhile, licked her lips eagerly, watching as those affected recovered from their initial surprise and gave up their attempts to cover themselves with their hands in order to glare exasperatedly at Ursula. "You're one to talk!" Anitra called from her chair, pushing herself up a bit, rather wishing that Direza had been less quick and allowed the fog to rid her of the rather frumpy cloak she currently wore, her own wardrobe being just as limited as Melora's. "It's hardly fair to dish it out if you can't take it... oh, Melora, why don't you help even the score a bit, hmm?"

The mare understood Anitra's intentions readily enough, and wasn't far from the sea-witch either, having previously drawn close to investigate what all the giggling was about. With a couple of strides, she'd covered the distance between them - and before Ursula could formulate a suitable protestation, her hands were reaching for the minimalistic black dress. The pregnancy had done nothing to decrease Melora's prodigious strength, and whatever Ursula had done to strengthen the fabric against her nudifier-bomb, it clearly didn't help much against brute strength. With a loud, tearing noise, the dress was literally ripped off of Ursula's body - or rather, off the slender brunette she'd chosen as her human form. Which wasn't really the same thing as being properly naked, but still, turnabout was fair play, right?

To her credit, Ursula took this retribution in good spirits, demonstratively stretching her now-naked body with a smile. While she hadn't made 'Vanessa' mind-blowingly beautiful, presumably to avoid attracting too much attention during her covert forays on land, she conversely hadn't bothered to add any actual flaws to the bits normally covered by clothes. She was slender, yet shapely - with just enough fat in just the right places to have all the right curves, and not a gram anywhere else. Her skin, meanwhile, was perfectly smooth and unblemished, creating a stark contrast to Tiffany's sun-browned and thoroughly speckled hide. There was not a trace of hair on her legs, armpits, groin, or anywhere else except on her head - with Ursula presumably seeing no reason to add such realistic flourishes to her disguise, considering that anyone who got a good look at her naked was likely to have better things to do than note how subtly 'off' her appearance was.

Manushya, however, clearly did notice - being a consummate professional at the fine art of pretending to be human, her skills sharpened by the necessities of survival - and snorted dismissively as she rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed with the craftsmanship on display. Her tail, meanwhile, was flickering around nervously, showing the emotions that her face was so carefully concealing. Unfortunately for her, the snort had drawn Anitra's attention to her - and now, the escalating party's hostess rose from her custom-made chair with a stifled groan. Being on her feet for any length of time was thoroughly uncomfortable these days, but she wasn't _really_an invalid, and she had a feeling that the Rakshasi would require a careful nudge to get things moving in the right direction.

"I'm not sure you're in any position to show scorn..." Anitra said as she waddled towards Manushya, who was still standing with her arms closed and her chin up, seemingly keeping her distance from the other guests - whether deliberately or subconsciously. She kept her voice throaty and seductive, though, taking the bite out of what might otherwise have been a rather sharp retort. Nonetheless, Manushya flinched slightly as she turned to face her, eyes still desperately trying to avoid meeting hers. "What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, challengingly, her paws scuffing slightly on the stone floor as if she was resisting a sudden urge to take a step or two back.

Anitra's smile widened as she covered the rest of the distance, pausing within arm's reach of the beautiful young Rakshasi she'd come to know so intimately during her trip to Ganarãjya. Manushya's personality_seemed_ to have changed radically since then, as she'd left both the guise of the lowly palace servant and the paranoid existence of a 'monster' trying to survive in human society behind. But Anitra felt quite confident that the pliable, obedient submissive she'd amused herself with back then was still there, lurking right beneath the striped fur, just waiting for a chance to spring out again.

"Well, at least everyone else actually wore a dress to the party..." Anitra replied as she leaned in. Manushya blinked, consternation flashing across her face as she struggled to control herself, her eyes swiftly running out of places to dodge to. Then Anitra's hands flashed out, swift as serpents - about the only part of her that_wasn't_ being weighed down by her advanced pregnancy, head included, she thought sardonically. One hand gripped Manushya firmly by the shoulder, holding her in place - while the other darted down between the Rakshasi's legs... and right through the creamy fabric of her dress.

It hadn't exactly been hard to reason it out. She and Direza had been protected by magic, and Kylaees' dress was likely made from something too tough and alien for Ursula's concoction to defeat it. But there was only one realistic reason why Manushya should have gone untouched... "What kind of girl goes to a party buck-naked, hmm?" Anitra purred as her fingers found their mark. Manushya shuddered in her grip as she felt the powerful digits dig into her hidden pussy, finding it if not soaking, then at least suitably slippery. "The kind who possesses basic pattern-recognition?" She managed to reply, clearly struggling to keep her voice even. Her previously-crossed arms had unfolded to grab at Anitra's wrists, but her attempts to push her away were clearly halfhearted. "I figured something like this was bound to happen, and I didn't want any of my actual dresses to wind up torn or stained or... dissolved, apparently..."

Still, with her ruse now revealed, Manushya dismissed the illusion she'd wreathed herself in by way of clothing, revealing the lithe body of a two-legged jungle-predator beneath. The patterns of her fur were as exotic and fetching as ever, and she was drawing lingering looks from the other party-guests now - and not just because of the miniature drama that was unfolding between her and Anitra. "There. Happy now?" she said, the iciness of her tone rather sabotaged by a wavering undercurrent. Anitra just chuckled. "Happier. But maybe you should drop the rest of your illusions, hmm?"

Manushya scowled. "What are you talking about? That was the only one I was maintaining." But Anitra shook her head, and quickly shifted her grip from the Rakshasi's shoulder to the scruff of her neck, while digging more deeply with her fingers and being rewarded with a gush of renewed lubrication as well as a barely-suppressed tremor running through the tiger-like girl's entire body. "I'm being_metaphorical_, Manushya. You clearly knew what kind of party this would turn out to be... but you still came. Dressed and prepared accordingly, even! So why don't you stop acting like you're above all this, hmm? Stop pretending like you don't _want_this."

With a firm grip on the girl's neck, she could now force their eyes together, and observe how the Rakshasi's feline pupils - so similar to her own - were starting to dilate. "It's... not like it was before..." Manushya mumbled protestingly, by way of reply. "You don't have any way to blackmail me anymore." Despite her words, however, she wasn't even trying to push Anitra off anymore - her legs, in fact, seemed to be spreading of their own accord, and the grip she still maintained on the wrist of the hand working between them appeared to now be pulling it in instead.

These details were far from lost on Anitra, whose widening smile threatened to split her face while she moved in as close as she dared, her baby-bump rubbing against the Rakshasi's silk-soft belly-fur. "I never needed to blackmail you..." she half-whispered as she fixed Manushya's no longer evasive eyes with her own, loading her gaze with promises of pleasures untold. "You enjoyed it. You loved it. You loved being used, abused, humiliated, tormented... even as Blake stretched all your holes to the breaking-point, you just kept cumming, over and over, panting like a bitch in heat all the way."

Indeed, Manushya was already starting to pant, shudders running through her body every few seconds - as much from Anitra's half-whispered words of seduction as from the three fingers that were plunging continuously into her by-now sopping wet pussy. "There's nothing_wrong_ with that, mind..." Anitra continued, licking her lips eagerly. "Some of my best friends are submissive, masochistic sluts. Just... drop the pretense, and get down on your knees where you belong. Then you'll soon feel that same pleasure, that same ecstasy, again..."

With a strangled groan, Manushya came - clutching Anitra's hands like a drowning sailor gripping a piece of flotsam, while her pussy clamped down on the intruding fingers like a vise. Someone whistled appreciatively nearby, providing a sudden reminder that the entire display had taken place in front of a half-dozen witnesses, but this no longer seemed to concern the Rakshasi. As Anitra released the grip she'd maintained on her neck, Manushya's legs simply buckled underneath her, and she obediently sank to her knees. This brought her to eye-level with the fingers that had just vacated her slit, and acting seemingly mostly on instinct, she leaned forwards and began to lick off the pungent juices still clinging stickily to them.

Satisfied with this successful offensive, Anitra took a moment to look around and gauge the reactions of the rest of her guests. Tiffany was watching intently, a slow blush of arousal creeping across her befreckled face as she started to catch up with the sudden change in atmosphere. Ursula, was glancing thoughtfully at Ariel out the corner of her eyes, while the naive princess of the sea watched the display before her with rapt, wide-eyed attention. Gisela Goodsong was taking the sudden escalation in a stride, having clearly been warned by Melora about the direction the party was bound to take... in fact, she seemed to be glancing over at said mare while licking her lips speculatively. And Kylaees, of course, was simply soaking up the atmosphere and devouring it - no doubt enjoying the taste of Manushya's pleasure-peak. Currently, she was busy squirming her way out of her still-intact dress, revealing a pointy tail that had previously been wound around her waist - one of the few demonic features she still retained, even after her ascension to Archdevil-status.

Satisfied that no-one was about to clutch her pearls and flee, scandalized, Anitra quickly followed Kylaees' example and shrugged off her own, rather rudimentary, clothes. She'd rather gotten into the habit of just sitting around naked, anyway, ever since her pregnancy had caused her to 'grow out' of her armor - thus, the floor-length cloak had been all she was wearing, just to satisfy the basic requirements of decency and allow the first half of the party to unfold without distractions. It was the work of a moment to simply pull it up over her head and throw it aside, revealing her - currently rather bulbous - physique underneath.

At least her part-dragon nature had spared her one of the indignities of regular pregnancies, she reflected as she stepped forwards, letting her vastly expanded midsection loom over the kneeling Manushya, guiding the tigress' unresistant head towards the slit between her legs with one hand while gesturing towards Direza with the other. Her bloated, ungainly belly threw off her balance, made it hard to stand and worse to walk... but it was entirely covered in pure, pale, unblemished skin. The large stretchmarks that a regular woman would have suffered from - and as, indeed, her own mother had sported in abundance while pregnant with her younger brother - were conspicuously absent, thanks to the combination of her body's supernatural elasticity and accelerated healing. Small favors...

Manushya obediently reacted to her new position, her coarse tongue lapping away at Anitra's labia, pushing in between them to taste the sweet juices that had now started to flow. She lacked Direza's finely polished skill, of course, but the sandpaper-texture of her tongue added a certain unique flair to the attempt all the same, providing a level of pain-adjacent stimulation which could not have been reached by anyone lacking her predatory features. Mostly, though, the act was motivated by a need to keep reminding the Rakshasi of her submissive status, to keep her sliding deeper and deeper into the appropriate mindset, rather than rally and put up a fight that might delay matters. Of course, pretty soon, fighting back wouldn't really be an option anymore.

Obedient to Anitra's orders as ever, Direza acted on the prearranged plan and - after quickly throwing off her own dress, which had really just been a slightly fancier version of her usual cloaks - she reached underneath one of the catering-tables and pulled out an odd arrangement of metal rods and leather straps from where the long tablecloth had concealed it. Melora, seeing this, quickly carried out her own side of the proceedings, reaching under another table with one foot and using it to pull out something resembling a low, wheeled cart - or, more properly, just a large board with tiny wheels stuck on the bottom, and a number of metal rods crisscrossing its flat surface.

These two objects were, respectively, carried and pushed to the center of the room, right behind where Manushya continued her oral endeavor, and unfolded. The rods of the cart were straightened up and set into the bottom, leaving it with four stout posts at the four corners, each terminating around hip-height. Meanwhile, the other arrangement proved slightly more complicated, but Direza had practiced in advance, and soon had it ready for its intended subject. At this point, Anitra regretfully ended the near-painful stimulation that Manushya had been lavishing on her wet pussy, and pushed the Rakshasi back out from underneath her overhanging belly.

Looking down at the momentarily-bewildered tiger-girl, she grinned broadly and quickly reached down to pet her. "Now, my dear little pet... just lean back and let my servants help you into your new accouterments. Once they're done, you'll be all set to serve your purpose for the rest of the evening..." Sure enough, Manushya failed to struggle at all as Direza strapped her into the bondage-arrangement Anitra had ordered crafted partially for tonight, and... partially for potential future uses. Her arms and legs were bent fully double and strapped together, each attached to one of the metal rods that, once properly connected, formed a large X-shape. Her head was pulled back, and her tail was connected to her longer headfur with a separate strap, and her head was further decorated with a blindfold and a ring-gag, before the whole arrangement was lifted into the middle of the cart and attached to the corner-rods, belly up.

This ultimately left Manushya suspended at just the right height, throat straightened and mouth wide-open, all nether holes fully exposed, bound and helpless but still conveniently portable. Rubbing the tigress' soft, white belly-fur, Anitra looked around with a grin. The other guests had all gathered around while the scaffolding was being assembled, obviously driven by curiosity, and Direza had already darted off to collect the last surprise that had been left hidden under the tables - a small stack of scrolls. "Well, girls!" She declared "It is, indeed, time for this party to _really_get underway. So let me just explain what kind of games I've prepared..."

Then her voice trailed off as she belated noticed a small detail that had been escaping her attention while she was focused on Manushya. She hadn't really paid much attention to Ariel during the initial nudification, but her dress - a simple, cream-colored, strapless affair - had certainly been affected too. She'd been raiding the buffet-table when the fog covered everything, and indeed, had been on the far side of it - leaving her lower half concealed even as her breasts were exposed, for once devoid of clamshell bra. Now that she'd come closer, however, it was clear that something_was off. She had legs, all right - perfectly serviceable and not-unattractive legs, nice and slender, but _between them, she was missing an obvious feature. Indeed, a thin band of emerald-green scales encircled her entire hips, like a biological set of panties, and where her pussy and adjoining features should have been, there was only the same pair of coquettish little orifice-covering fins she'd sported when she still had a fish-tail.

Others had noticed the direction of Anitra's gaze and followed it out of curiosity as her promised speech paused, and now Ariel was shrinking away from the surprised looks, her hands seeking to cover both her bounteous breasts and the ill-fitting orifice between her brand-new legs, a blush rising in her face. Ursula, however, just chuckled. "Oh, don't look so surprised, everyone... you're embarrassing the poor girl! Remember who gave her those legs, hmm? It was her dear old daddy, and of course he's not going to give her anything else if he doesn't have to, is he?" Sidling up to the shrinking Ariel in a fashion that seemed strangely octopoid for her current, human disguise, she threw an arm around the girl's shoulders. "But don't worry, darling, don't_worry_... Ursula has your back, as always, and this time it won't cost you a conch!"

With a flourish, she produced a vial from... where, exactly, Anitra wondered? She was naked, now. Though, on reflection, she couldn't have hidden that smoke-bomb anywhere while wearing that tight dress anyway. Apparently, she was pulling her potions from the thin air by some arcane means - quite intriguing. Ariel, however, seemed too focused on the vial that Ursula now offered her to worry about where exactly it'd come from. "Just drink this, love, and you'll be a real girl..." Personally, Ariel would have been a bit leery to accept such a guarantee from someone who had so recently displayed such a... mischievous bend, but Ariel, as usual, was less skeptical. Before anyone could chime in with their_opinions, she'd grabbed the vial, pulled off the stopper, and poured the contents - a glimmering, golden liquid which at least didn't_look much like poison - down her throat.

A moment later, she doubled over, both hands now clutching her groin, leaving her incredibly shapely tits on full display as her eyes widened. The trail of scales that ringed her waist, however, was visibly disappearing, individual scales turning gray and flaking off to reveal raw, reddened skin beneath. After several seconds - which, based on Ariel's pained grimace, were anything but pleasant - she finally removed her hands again, while bending even further forwards in an attempt to see the results from herself. And as usual, Ursula had demonstrated that whatever her failings in the field of morality and ethics, there was nothing at all wrong with her skills: A perfectly human-like pussy -mound could now be seen between Ariel's legs, just as red and sore-looking as the rest of the new skin and currently hairless, but still an undeniable improvement over her previous lack of orifices altogether.

"Oh, this is wonderful!" she immediately declared, poking her new labia exploratively and wincing slightly as the touch apparently informed her just how sore the new equipment was. Nonetheless, her next sentence was "I can't wait to try it out!" Conscious of the need to reassert her command of events, lest Ursula steal her thunder, Anitra quickly stepped in at this point. "Well, then I guess it's a good thing we've got these!" she declared, gesturing towards the scrolls Direza had fetched. "Actually, it seems to me that Ursula would make for the perfect demonstration... I'm sure she's eager to continue helping Ariel! Direza, if you would?" Theoretically, anyone could use one of the scrolls, what with the spell having already been engraved into the parchment and just waiting to be released... but you still needed to know how to read and speak the language of the Arcane. It was possible that Ursula knew it, but other than that, Direza was the only one present to have that ability.

The sea-witch in question made no attempt to defend herself, merely glancing curiously at the naked drow-elf as she unrolled one of the scrolls and read its contents aloud, releasing the bound spell. The result was immediate - a throaty moan rolled from Ursula's currently human throat as she nearly duplicated Ariel's earlier crotch-grabbing maneuver... but in this case, her hands were soon pushed aside by a sizable bulge. As she saw it, however, Anitra had to do a double-take. It was the same old penis-summoning spell that had been bound into the Ring of Priap, and thus she had expected Ursula to now sport a regular, human penis, to go with her currently human appearance. But apparently, she hadn't really accounted for how that spell might interact with the magic Ursula had used to _assume_that human form.

What now appeared from between her human thighs was certainly anything but_human - a bulging, sinuous limb of purple and black, more like a tentacle than any dick Anitra had ever seen (and she'd seen more than a few), yet still sporting a recognizable head and even a taut, purple ball-sack beneath. Was this what a male octopoid sported, or some fusion of that and human, brought on by the combined spells? Anitra wasn't sure, and if _she knew, Ursula didn't seem inclined to share. She just gazed down at her new limb and grinned broadly, running a finger along its rippled back as it started to harden under her touch. "Well, now, this should be_interesting..._" she murmured.

"We've got plenty more where that came from!" Anitra brashly declared, forcibly pushing away her curiosity about the exact nature of Ursula's tool, never mind what it'd feel like going inside you. "And don't worry - it only looks like that because Ursula isn't quite what she seems." That much, at least, seemed clear. "How about you, Tiffany?" She quickly tore her attention away and directed it at the vivacious redhead, who'd been regarding the increasingly-hard tool between Ursula's legs with a sort of curiosity-laced horniness. "You've found yourself at the mercy of dick-equipped individuals more than once. How about trying that shoe on the other foot, hmm?"

Curiosity redirected, Tiffany readily agreed and moments later became the next target of the spell, leaving the second scroll to crumble to dust, its load blown. What appeared between her legs was unquestionably human, though also remarkably thick and meaty, emerging proudly from a jungle of red crotch-hair. It hardened and rose towards the ceiling almost as soon as it came into existence, making Tiffany's mood clear - but its ascent terminated after barely making it past horizontal, making its sheer mass clear. Anitra, for her part, was mildly surprised that it wasn't covered in freckles.

There was still two scrolls left, but it seemed clear that Ariel would want to acquaint herself with her pussy, for now - there'd be time enough to let her try a different type of genitals later. Kylaees, of course, needed no assistance, and the Ring of Priap had been reserved for Melora's use today - leaving only the diminutive Gisela Goodsong, who had taken the appearance of such an unusual number of dicks for an all-girl party in a stride. When given the offer to join in, however, she politely declined, grinning broadly. "For now, at least..." she hedged. "I've got some_other_ activities in mind. Thanks for the offer, though!"

With this out of the way, Anitra clapped her hands to draw attention again - mostly from Ursula and Ariel, who already seemed halfway ready to make for the nearest corner. "NOW then... just gotta lay down a couple of rules. Firstly, Manushya here is, of course, free use for the duration - all her holes are open and available, and her tongue stands ready to explore any orifice it is offered access to - try not to let her get too lonely, hmm? In fact, I think she's already feeling a bit ignored..." A gurgle from the Rakshasi's ring-gag-equipped muzzle seemed to confirm this, leading to a few grins from the onlookers. "Second..." she then continued, grabbing Direza and pulling the slender elf in closer so that she could wrap her strong fingers around the drow's right ass-cheek - the one proudly bearing the brand that marked her as Anitra's property. "This pretty little thing can do more than just cast that handy spell on command."

"My dear Direza here is a perverted, masochistic, submissive slut - in case you couldn't tell. All her holes are, naturally, available for anyone who might see fit to use them in whatever fashion they please..." Direza blushed reddish-gray beside her as she rattled this off, her breath quickening at the humiliation of being so bluntly put on display. "...however, her main duties are oral in nature. Anyone desiring to engage in anal intercourse need only call on her, and she'll eagerly provide the necessary lubrication - as well as clean the involved bits afterwards, to keep everything nice and neat. Oh, and once you find that the easily-available drinks are making themselves known again, you needn't bother with a trip out to the loos - she will be absolutely delighted to serve as your personal toilet, drinking down every drop and thanking you for the privilege... won't you, my pet?"

She let her hand wander as she talked, fingers moving from behind to in front, and as she finished, she slid two of them up Direza's already-dripping cunt, pulling harshly upwards and forwards to show a flash of pink amidst all the gray to all the onlookers. With her pump already thoroughly primed by the speech, this combination of being put on semi-public display and being fingered by her beloved mistress pushed the drow over the edge, and she came, trembling, clinging to Anitra's shoulder as she loudly moaned out "Yes, mistress!"

Grinning, Anitra relinquished her grip and stepped back, withdrawing her fingers from Direza's tight snatch and raising them to her lips to savor the sweet, yet musky taste of her arousal. It hadn't taken a lot to bring the submissive drow off, and while the circumstances no doubt contributed to this, the fact that she'd been wearing an amusing little piece of jewelry Anitra had dubbed the 'Anecstatic Ring', from the point that the enchanter had finally delivered it and until just before the party started, probably contributed too. The nondescript little ring, carved from a solid chunk of Infernal Obsidian - a material particularly conducive to curses - carried the effects of the Curse of Belayed Pleasure, effectively preventing the wearer from achieving an orgasm regardless of what they did. It also couldn't be removed without the secret command-word, or a really powerful Remove Curse spell. Anitra had amused herself by 'testing' its effects on Direza several times over the last few days, so it was hardly a wonder she'd been ready to explode at the slightest stimulation... and the results had been perfect. While perhaps lacking the same kind of broad utility as the Ring of Priap, her new toy nonetheless promised to open up a few new possibilities, without inconveniencing Blake.

Speaking of convenience... stepping away from Direza, who was still shuddering slightly with orgasmic aftershock and leaning heavily on a nearby table while waiting for her legs to stop shaking, Anitra raised a third point. "Third - don't worry about me. I just don't have the pep for the kind of acrobatics I'd usually get up to at the moment, so I'll just retreat to my chair and take a load off while watching you all... so just have fun! Oh, and feel free to borrow any... toys or tools you like from my collection." At this signal, Melora - who'd moved into position in expectation of this final point - pulled down the drapery that had, until then, covered what Anitra tended to refer to as her 'Wall-o-sextoys'. It was decked with a wide variety of dildos, restraints, harnesses, spanking-gear, outright instruments of torture, and much more - all the stuff that she and Blake had accumulated since their arrival in the Utopia, in order to spice up the games they played with their respective 'pets'...

As the guests began to look speculatively at each other, the selection of toys - and, in two cases, at their new 'equipment' - Anitra turned word into deed and waddled back towards her chair, eager to get off her feet once more. Already, her legs and feet were starting to hurt abominably, and she knew her back wouldn't be far behind. There was, however, one more detail she needed to take care of before she could just lean back and enjoy the show - and so, she gestured for Melora - who had now finished all her prearranged duties - to join her by her seat. The mare obediently followed the imperious gesture and - without any request or order to that effect - proceeded to lend an arm as Anitra awkwardly lowered herself back into the sinfully comfortable chair.

Smiling up at the mare - careful to hide the brief stab of envy she couldn't help but feel every time she was reminded of just how much_easier_ this whole pregnancy-thing seemed to be for Melora - she reached for the side-table that stood conveniently by the chair's armrests. Or, more accurately, for the semi-hidden compartment _under_it, where the tablecloth concealed the contents - like a miniature version of the way they'd kept various other toys hidden under the buffet-tables. "Blake left a little something for you..." she intoned, and watched as Melora's polite interest instantly switched to intense focus, her eyes widening and her pupils dilating.

"...he said that since this party was supposed to be for you, too, it behooved him to ensure that you'd be able to enjoy it_properly_. And these should help with that." As she finished, she pulled Blake's little surprise out from under the table and brandished them before Melora's eager eyes. Three stout rings of polished steel, roughly the size of a regular armband but with subtle variances in terms of radius between them - fairly innocuous, except for the small fact that the inside of each was lined by vicious-looking spikes. Each was barely a quarter of an inch long, but there was a lot of them, and each was razor-sharp. Unlike the spiked rings encircling Melora's nipples, there was nothing magical about these, either - they were just plain old metal rings.

Nonetheless, it seemed to take the masochistic mare only moments to realize what they were meant for, and she was already reaching for the Ring of Priap - which had been lying around on the same little table since the last time it was used - before Anitra could even order her to do so. "Start with it on the soft setting..." she thus quickly commanded, despite feeling reasonably certain that Melora would have done so regardless. The regular version of the dick-summoning spell provided a penis that functioned just like a real one, growing soft or hard depending on circumstances, but the additional Blessing of Priap woven into the ring enabled the wearer to control their erection manually, keeping it soft or hard for as long as they liked.

Now, Melora's by-now familiar horsecock emerged like a sleeping serpent, dangling heavily between her legs, impressive even in its flaccid state. It was just barely thin enough for Anitra to slide the three rings into place around it with some slight scratching - one at the very base, slightly larger than the others, a second halfway up the shaft, right above the mare's natural ring, the radial disc, and the final and smallest just below the point where the head would soon flare wide. Once Melora twisted the ring and activated the 'hard mode', as she once again did unbidden, the results were predictable. The growing girth of her shaft pushed it against the spiked rings - until the spikes disappeared entirely into the tender flesh, leaving only the gleaming steel rings visible, along with one or two tiny rivulets of blood meandering between them. For the most part, the sheer tightness of the rings was preventing any bleeding, despite the fact that her cock was now perforated in about a hundred places or so.

Melora's breathing was already quickening - whether from pain or pleasure was, in her case, a purely academic question - and that was just from standing there. It was painfully obvious that if she actually put her dick to its intended use, particularly in any kind of tight orifice, the resulting pressures and frictions would pull against the rings, which would pull the spikes back and forth, inflicting a constant stream of torment. Meanwhile, the party-guests would only see someone who was, perhaps, a bit _too_enthusiastic about cockrings. "Oh, and Blake said something about you trying to ram it home in the asshole of every guest here..." Anitra continued with a naughty grin as Melora straightened up again, getting the pain - and pleasure - under control as she grew more familiar with it. "I think he may have some small reward in mind for you if you manage it."

At this, Melora speculatively looked around the room. It'd be a tall order, for sure. Her dick was bigger than anything a regular human being could hope to wield, and the three rings had certainly not reduced either its girth nor its granite-like hardness. Some of the guests would likely be eager to take on the challenge - but others were more questionable. Anitra, meanwhile, followed Melora's gaze, and noted with satisfaction that things had already moved in a delightfully erotic direction while she helped the mare apply the rings.

Ariel was in a corner nearby - fully wrapped around Ursula in every sense of the word. Her legs were around the disguised sea-witch's slender hips, her arms around her shoulder, and her brand-new, still-sore pussy was clearly wrapped around the misshapen, semi-octopoid cock she was sporting. Ursula was grinding against her with enough skill that Anitra couldn't help but to wonder if she hadn't tried it from that angle before, while simultaneously making out with the naive mermaid with such passion that Anitra felt certain she'd had a fair bit of experience with that at least. With a gesture, she directed Melora's attention towards the couple. "Why don't you start with Ursula? You know she can handle it all, after all, and she didn't complain last time. Much, anyway!"

As Melora started towards the designated corner with an eager expression, clearly determined to do her damnedest to fulfill the mission before her, Anitra considered the rest of the party. Inevitably, her first focus was Manushya - who had jumped at the opportunity to avail herself of the tigress' eager holes? Tiffany, as it turned out - apparently, she had taken Anitra's suggestion to heart, and decided to find out what it was like to be the one _fucking_the helpless sex-slave, rather than BEING the sex-slave. She was also, clearly, enjoying her new dick immensely. Bent over Manushya's suspended form, fingers buried in the thick fur of her flanks, Tiffany was thrusting powerfully - ramming her cock into the Rakshasi's exposed groin. Probably her pussy, considering the angle and the fact she hadn't called for Direza's assistance. Certainly, Manushya seemed to be enjoying the attention, based on the drool and moans that were emerging from her forcibly-opened muzzle.

Anitra had honestly expected that the tigress would swiftly wind up spit-roasted - but the reason she hadn't been was both plain to see and not very far away. Kylaees had already summoned one of the vast variety of demon-cocks that she could manifest at will, thanks to having devoured the hearts of numerous demonic foes - at the moment, Anitra couldn't tell which she'd gone with, but it was probably her old favorite: A long, dark-red tool sporting several highly distinct ridges along its length, as well as a geometric pattern of small, bony knots along the back, and a very pointy head. The reason she couldn't actually tell was named Gisela Goodsong.

Despite its not-insignificant size, the halfling was currently deepthroating the demonic dick like a pro, despite lacking the kind of biological advantage Anitra possessed. Presumably, she was able to grab a fresh breath of air every time she pulled her head back for a moment, only to thrust it forwards again, corkscrewing her face while swallowing the entire tool right to the root. One of her hands were busy between her legs, sliding in and out of her slit with the consummate ease of a long-time mastubator, while the other was cradling Kylaees' bulging ball-sack, massaging it with a light touch. Kylaees, for her part, was clearly enjoying the attention - leaning back against a table as Gisela worked on her, both her hands wrapped tightly around the table's edge, ebony nails biting into the wood as if she was specifically trying to keep herself from grabbing hold of her diminutive partner and setting her own pace, likely to the detriment of Gisela's ability to breathe.

As for Direza, she'd reacted promptly to Melora's gesticulated summons, and had already made her way to Ariel and Ursula's corner, where she'd immediately buried her face between Ursula's shapely, currently-human buttocks. The disguised sea-witch clearly didn't mind the added stimulation of the skillful and thorough rimjob she was dishing out - and if she'd realized what it prefaced, she certainly wasn't showing any worries about it. Instead, she was simply redoubling the energy with which the thrust her strangely-shaped cock into Ariel's eager snatch, the recipient clearly no longer bothered by its soreness. Direza, meanwhile, kept pace with the thrusts with her usual, inhumanly perfect timing.

This particular display of the dark elf's incredible fine-motor control was quite familiar to Anitra - but the escalation that soon followed took it to new heights, and raised Anitra's eyebrows along with it. Apparently deciding that she might as well acquire some lubrication even as Ursula's rear hole was receiving its, Melora knelt down behind Direza, scooted forwards until her ringed cock was resting between the drow's flat, muscular buttocks - and then simply lifted her hindquarters up, maneuvered them carefully, and pushed them down over it. Direza's pussy, amply lubricated, offered little resistance to the familiar intrusion of Melora's magically summoned cock - and her slender physique meant that she fit in neatly between the mare's huge, pregnant belly and her muscular thighs, where someone a touch... thicker might have been in trouble.

But even as Melora's powerful arms moved her slowly up and down, carefully applying a thorough layer of pussy-juice to the equine rod, Direza didn't miss a beat. Somehow, she kept managing to contort her body in such a way that her face could continue to follow every thrust of Ursula's back and forth at the same time, while suggesting interesting things about the sheer flexibility of her elfin spine. Melora, meanwhile, had some interesting grimaces flashing across her face repeatedly as she got her first taste of what it'd be like to have the taut insides of a sex-partner pull at the spiked steel rings.

As they continued their meticulous lubricant-application, Anitra's attention was drawn away for a while by a wordless exclamation of primal ecstasy - one that could not have sounded any more human, for all that it came from the throat of Kylaees, Queen of Hell and leader of the Renegades. The table she was gripping was actually creaking, the wood compressing and cracking under the force of her grip as her whole body stiffened orgasmically - while at the same time, Gisela Goodsong amply demonstrated that she did, indeed, swallow. Not a drop of Kylaees' climactic ejaculation ever reached the conveniently-easy-to-clean stone floors.

Indeed, as she pulled her head back, Gisela carefully licked both the shaft - which did, indeed, turn out to be Kylaees perennial favorite with the pointy head - and her own lips. "Spicy! I think I _like_it..." the halfling declared naughtily, once she had finished coughing and taking deep breaths. Anitra couldn't help but grin - she well remembered making the same observation during her sojourn in Hell, before the mounting physiological changes that the constant state of Quickening had wrought reached her taste-buds. The halfling then glanced covertly to one side, then the other, and finally patted Kylaees on the thigh. "Hey, why don't you go introduce the trussed-up pussycat to that fancy toy of your, hmm? Bet she'd love it..."

This was probably a fairly safe bet, Anitra thought with a glance towards Manushya. Tiffany had, it seemed, reached her first 'male' orgasm in relative silence, and followed this up by switching side - or rather, by pulling out and then spinning around the wheeled cart that Manushya was suspended from. Now she was driving her cock into the Rakshasi's throat, draping her heavy ball-sack across the sensitive nose beneath, and producing some interesting grimaces as she discovered what it felt like to have a sandpaper-rough tongue caress the base of your shaft.

The consequence of that switch, of course, was that Manushya's _other_end was currently unoccupied - cum dripping from her freshly-fucked pussy as it seemed to pulsate with unreleased desire. Kylaees took one look at it, and obediently followed Gisela's directions. Anitra recognized the vaguely absent expression on the she-devil's face - the pleasure and desire radiating off so many different subjects was soaking into her mind, overwhelming her, putting her in a state of rut. Indeed, Anitra had seen that expression quite frequently on all her 'friends' while she'd been down there...

Moments later, Kylaees had positioned herself between Manushya's thighs and, with a firm grip, begun to pound her. Based on the angle, she'd gone for the tigress' tailhole, with halfling-saliva as the sole lubricant - no doubt sparking lots of friction, considering the ridged and heavily-textured nature of Kylaee's demon-cock. Still, that hole had handled Blake's towering rod in the past - albeit with some help from a certain potion - so it was hardly a surprise that the tightly-bound tigress was shuddering in as much pleasure as pain as she groaned and gurgled around Tiffany's throat-invading cock.

A lovely sight indeed - but Anitra couldn't help but wonder why Gisela had so deftly redirected Kylaees after helping to 'warm her up' so effectively. The reason, however, was swiftly getting clearer, as the halfling moved towards the other trio of lovers with a thoughtful expression. While Anitra had been looking elsewhere, Direza had apparently finished with her lubricant-application duties and moved out of the way - and Melora had followed up in the predictable fashion. With her torso swayed backwards to keep her belly out of the way, she was thrusting her hips forwards and upwards, spearing Ursula's tight ass with aplomb - and driving the sea-witch into Ariel all the more forcefully, thus giving the naive mermaid an even more potent pounding as a bonus.

This left Direza currently unattached, her eyes flickering between Kylaees and Melora as if trying to calculate which of them was likely to finish - and thus require her cleaning services - first. A slap on the behind, however, pulled her attention downwards to where Gisela was grinning up at her. "Hey, elf-girl... you any good with your tongue?" she asked tauntingly, and Direza swiftly replied - with something sounding a lot like pride - "Well, my Mistress has never complained..." The halfling nodded, eyebrow quirked, and pointed down towards her pussy, which was already oozing pungent juices from her earlier masturbation. It was also, to Anitra's inhumanly-sharp eyes, freshly-shaved and elegantly pierced - sporting a pearl atop her clitoral hood, and a solid eight tiny golden rings lining her outer labia. "Well, why don't you show me what you can do, then... lie down on your back."

A tremor went through Direza as she obediently complied, opening her mouth invitingly as the short-legged halfling squatted on her face, grinning down between her thighs at her. Her tongue swiftly found its mark, drilling into Gisela's smooth-shaven slit, dancing around the cold metal rings, eliciting an appreciative moan from the recipient. Behind the halfling's back, her arms twitched as if tempted to reach for her own pussy, but she'd received strict orders for today - she was free to cum as much as she pleased if any of the guests deigned to grant her such pleasure, but she was strictly forbidden from masturbating!

Nonetheless, she was clearly deriving quite a bit of pleasure just from the situation - it was, after all, hard to think of a more mundane, down-to-earth, unspectacular race than the halflings. Simple, pastoral folks, mostly known for their superb chefs, brewers, and occasionally craftsmen - with the odd cat-burglar or daring adventurer for spice. Nobody feared the halflings, or indeed worried about them in the least. When comparing them to the fearsome Drow, with their bloodthirsty warriors, terrifying torturers and sinister sorcerers, it wasn't hard to see why servicing a halfling in such a way might trigger Direza's submissive streak quite effectively.

Still, to Anitra's eyes, it was clear that Direza wasn't - and never had been - Gisela's primary target. Just like Kylaees, she was merely a conveniently available distraction while she waited to pounce on her mark - Melora! Indeed, her current position, sitting neatly atop Direza's face, let her continue to keep an eye on Melora's progress - as well as just enjoying the sight of the mare's muscular buttocks clenching and unclenching as she pounded Ursula's ass. Said act was, Anitra reflected, definitely far more painful for Melora than for her target, despite the lack of proper preparation prior to the huge intrusion - Anitra had no trouble imagining what it'd feel like when the hefty horsecock was forced up a dirtpipe both unprepared and unaccustomed to invaders of that size, but she _couldn't_imagine what it'd feel like to have such a tight orifice cling to three spiked rings tightly surrounding your cock. Of course, between the pain, the pleasure, and the fact that Blake had ordered it all, Melora was clearly enjoying herself immensely, her eyes lighting up with dark ecstasy as she struggled to reach an orgasm despite the constricting rings.

Even though she was watching the display largely from the back, Gisela had clearly noticed Melora's enjoyment too. Leaning forwards a bit, she put a hand on Direza's forehead and lifted her groin slightly off the dark elf's face so that she could talk. "You and Melora are close, right? Is she really into anal or something?" she queried, causing Direza to blink in brief confusion as she sought to retask her tongue from cunt-licking to talking. "Not as far as I know..." she replied, eyes rolling up to look past Gisela's hand and watch Melora labor away. "...but I heard that Lord Blake promised her a reward if she could manage to claim the asses of everyone at the party."

Indeed, she most likely heard it at the same time Melora did, despite having been quite a few strides away at the time, Anitra reflected. She honestly wasn't sure if Direza's inhumanly-sharp sense of hearing was superior to her own or not, but they were definitely in the same neighborhood. Either way, this was quite an important moment, so Anitra put that thought aside and focused all her attention on Gisela Goodsong's face. It was already clear that the halfling had an interest in Melora, but was it just a desire to add 'with benefits' to their existing friendship, or was it something more than that? If it was, the revelation that Blake, despite not even being_there, was still directing Melora's actions would no doubt spark anger, or at least consternation - which would be an indicator of future awkwardness and/or heartache. Melora was completely devoted to Blake, after all, so if this charming halfling tried to insert herself into _that equation, she'd soon find herself thoroughly disappointed.

Fortunately, Gisela's expression was one of slightly mischievous amusement as she lowered her groin back into Direza's mouth, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Anitra breathed a sigh of relief. Clearly, Gisela merely saw this revelation as something she could easily use to manipulate Melora into whatever position she desired - or maybe she was just pondering whether the mare's sizable erection would fit in_her_ diminutive rear orifice. Either way, it didn't seem like Gisela's interests went beyond the purely sexual, which was good new indeed - there wasn't really anything to stop the two of them from enjoying a long-term relationship of that nature, seeing as Blake, being a dragon, was inherently incapable of jealousy. Considering Melora's monomania, it would obviously never be anything but casual, but since that seemed to be what Gisela was after anyway, so what?

With this final worry allayed, Anitra smiled and let her own hands do what Direza's so desired - finding their way down to her wet slit, and beginning to rub and tease it gently as she watched the various displays unfolding before her. Recently, sex had become more and more of a chore - even getting reamed anally by Blake had lost some of its luster, between the severely limited selection of positions they could now do it in, and his unwillingness to pound her as hard as he'd used to. Something that, she had to admit, probably _was_wise, considering how much space her currently-occupied womb was taking up at the moment.

Either way, once she'd realized that she couldn't invite over her old friends from Karistad and have the baby-shower they'd always talked_about when they were young, and furthermore that virtually all the girls she _could invite were former sexual partners of hers, the rest had come naturally. Her occasional voyeuristic streak was the one thing that wasn't impacted by her current situation - her eyes, after all, still worked just fine. And if the current event had lost some of its appeal by virtue of her not being a hidden observer, it had gained at least as much simply by the vast breadth of sexual activities she could watch simultaneously - with more soon to come, if she was any judge!

As she watched and gently masturbated - not particularly interested in rushing to the climax at this point - Melora reached her_first orgasm of the evening... and from her expression, it was quite a mind-blowing one, despite (or perhaps _because of) the torturous rings encircling her cock. Anitra's eagle eye suggested that the other two parties in that particular tryst had already cum several times - Ariel's orgasmic cries had no doubt been silenced by Ursula's practiced tongue, but the slimy strands of jizz that were dripping from her brand-new pussy, thinned by a copious flow of something clearer and sweeter, spoke eloquently on their own. Of course, as long as Melora had been pounding them both up against the wall, neither had been able to interrupt their lovemaking even if they wanted to...

Now, however, the spent Melora finally stepped back, pulling out. The shiny coating of mixed semen and ass-slime that covered most of her shaft showed quite clearly how deep the penetration had been - nearly to the base - and it was hard to say how many of the traces of blood came from the biting rings, and how much from Ursula's over-strained intestines. Certainly, the freshly abandoned asshole gaped splendidly in the horse-cock's absence, before squeezing itself back together a couple of seconds later, emitting a gooey stream as it did so. Clearly, this was what Gisela had been waiting for - rising from her 'seat', she allowed Direza to get off the floor and carry out her assigned duties, something she did with eagerness and aplomb.

While Direza meticulously licked the slimy mess off of Melora's sizable shaft, Gisela approached the panting mare from behind and drew her attention with a slightly-more-than-friendly buttock-caress. Anitra strained her ears to pick up the throaty, seductive voice of the halfling, and licked her lips in satisfaction. This girl, she decided, had a way with words! "Hey, girlfriend... I hear you're on a quest to ram that forearm-sized todger up every asshole in the room..." Melora's eyes, still vague after the mind-blowing pleasure of the orgasmic release, refocused and swiveled down to Gisela, then jumped between her and the still rock-hard erection she was sporting. It certainly made for a rather dangerous-looking comparison, especially considering the flare that her cockhead was currently sporting, granting it a girth that seemed entirely beyond the physical limits of the halfling's tiny body.

Gisela, however, did not appear to be intimidated - if anything, she was looking hungrily at the huge tool, all but licking her lips with hunger. "Well... yeah, kind of, I suppose..." Melora hesitantly admitted, clearly hedging as she considered the potential consequences of applying said quest to her halfling friend's compact physique. Gisela, undeterred, grinned and moved her hand from the mare's buttocks to her groin, gently cupping and massaging the heavy, silk-smooth balls that dangled beneath the fully-erect rod. Each of them was roughly the size of her fist, Anitra noted.

"Well, how 'bout making mine your next port of call then, hmm? Oh, don't_worry_, I can handle it, trust me..." the last bit was clearly motivated by the obvious concern in Melora's eyes, and her grin widened. "I've been around the block once or twice, you know. I'm not saying I could take the whole thing, mind - I'm only mortal! - but I can handle more than you'd probably think. Past the second ring, easily!" That, by itself, seemed a pretty tall order to Anitra - no pun intended. On Gisela's halfling frame, the length from Melora's flared cockhead and down to the radial disc where the second ring was attached, was more than the distance between Gisela's shaven pussy and her navel. If she intended to go beyond that, the cockhead would soon be approaching her breasts. Anitra handled penetrations of that magnitude all the time - even now, in her advanced state of pregnancy - but then_she_ wasn't exactly 'mortal'...

Still, the halfling presumably knew her own body best, and despite the shade of doubt that lingered in her eyes, Melora hesitantly nodded. "Well... if you're offering..." Gisela's smile widened, and she squeezed down a bit harder on the handful of testicle she was holding, sending a pleasurable shudder up the mare's spine. "Oh, I am... albeit with just a couple of conditions..." Four of them, actually, as it turned out, and Melora nodded repeatedly as Gisela listed them off. Firstly, she'd have to help prepare the halfling's asshole for the large intrusion - stretching her out gradually to avoid any unfortunate tearing that might result from the sudden arrival of such a girthy invader otherwise. Direza had already laid the groundwork, but it'd still take a bit of work - and in the meantime, Melora's flare would presumably go down, which seemed like a pretty mandatory step all by itself.

Second, Gisela got to choose the position they'd use, which seemed a rather reasonable precaution considering their respective sizes. The third one, she declared while stepping over to the nearby wall-o-sextoys and carefully picking out a butt-plug that roughly matched Melora's girth at its widest point. "Once you're done, I want you to jam this one up my rear before anything can leak out..." the halfling declared, holding the toy up with an eager look in her eyes. "I bet you cum bucketfuls, and I wanna retain that hot, full feeling for as long as I can..." she was throwing the odd glance towards Ursula, whose vacated asshole continued to drool thick strings of cum as Melora's monumental load slowly went gravity's way. The two of them had, Anitra noted, not so much stopped or even paused now that Melora was done, but rather just switched things up a touch. Ariel now had her face to the wall, her back turned, and a misshapen octopus-hybrid-cock lodged up her no-doubt tight little hiney. Which, hey, might prepare it somewhat for when Melora got around to her.

The fourth condition, meanwhile, made Anitra's smile widen. "Fourth, once you're done playing around with that thing..." Gisela gestured towards Melora's iron-banded cock "...you let me have a taste of your sweet pussy, m'kay?" The mare fidgeted a bit at that. "Um... I'm probably going to have to use it for the rest of the evening..." she admitted, glancing around. This was part of the party-planning, really - albeit with the rings and the anal quest as surprise twists. There'd always be more holes than rods to fill them with at this party, so even if she managed to square away her task from Blake, Melora would keep the Ring of Priap - and the torturous metal bands - on throughout, so as to keep the party hot, heavy and moving.

Gisela, however, was undeterred, shrugging off this objection. "No biggie. You can always come by my stall later, right? Then you just let me pull you into the back room and have my way with you..." At this point, she really was licking her lips with hungry eagerness - and, enough said, all the conditions were ultimately approved. While Direza finished cleaning off Melora's cock and moved on to Ursula's asshole, massaging the throbbing, overstrained ring of her sphincter with a well-trained tongue and gamely sucking up the steady cum-flow from it with only the slightest hesitation, Melora started working on preparing Gisela's rear orifice for a similar intrusion, with fingers, tongue, and a couple of small toys retrieved from the wall.

After this necessary, preparatory step, however, a fresh surprise arrived as Gisela specified the 'position' she had in mind. "I want you to do it while standing, like before..." the halfling explained, referring to the way Melora had pounded Ursula up against the wall earlier. "...and just holding me up and slamming me down on your cock like a sex-doll. Face-up, please - so you can see your progress!" This was enough to lift both Melora and_Anitra's eyebrows. Doing something like that, the short-limbed halfling would be quite helpless, arms and legs flailing in the air without any way to find purchase - the kind of humiliation that_Direza would likely find highly appealing. Indeed, the submissive dark elf glanced away from her ass-cleaning task for a moment with an appreciative gleam in her eyes as she heard the declaration.

Gisela, however, didn't really seem to have an affinity for that kind of thing - and indeed, she just shrugged off the raised eyebrows. "What? I like the feeling. It's one of the main advantages to big lugs like you! So what are you waiting for? Jam me down on your cock 'till I scream!" Certainly, she didn't seem to be the obedient, submissive sort - just a girl who knew what she liked and wasn't afraid to ask for it. Especially when she could be fairly certain that she'd get it on request, what with her mark being between a fanged steel ring and a hard place.

While Anitra watched eagerly, her masturbation picking up speed, Gisela demonstrated that she could, indeed, handle more than most would've given her credit for. She looked like a child between Melora's large, powerful hands as she was lifted by the waist, but her legs spread with entirely adult eagerness as she was lowered down over the waiting rod. Even unflared, Melora's cockhead was as wide as one of her arms - at the elbow, not the wrist! - and yet, she groaned with more pleasure than pain as she was forced down on it, her carefully-prepared sphincter giving way before the forceful entry.

From her low angle, Anitra sadly couldn't see it - but she could easily imagine what Gisela had meant by Melora being able to 'see her progress'. Halflings generally weren't known for their slim physiques, but Gisela was in pretty good shape all the same - certainly, she wasn't carrying enough belly-flab to hide the bulge that would now be moving up her body. What Anitra could see was the way inch after inch of the thick horse-cock disappeared into her diminutive body, until the second metal band - with her radial ring waiting right behind it - touched the widely-distended sphincter. Alas, with the halfling hanging virtually horizontal in midair, her hips fitting neatly beneath Melora's pregnant belly, Melora couldn't actually see it either - her aforementioned belly was in the way. Bit of a shame, in Anitra's opinion, but at least Gisela could enjoy the view herself just by looking down between her tits.

At this point, Melora carried out Gisela's request - and started pounding the halfling's small, yet curvaceous body down on her erection with both speed and force, her well-toned arm-muscles standing out clearly against her brown hide. It only took a half-dozen thrusts or so before the iron ring battered its way past the sphincter, disappearing inside the halfling's hungry asshole as promised - and another inch or so of shaft gradually followed. At this point, even Anitra could see the bump that appeared on the upper-left side of Gisela's belly every time Melora bottomed out - barely shy of the bountiful tits that were now swinging forcefully back and forth with each thrust.

Well, if Gisela really enjoyed the sensation of being so thoroughly manhandled, legs flailing in the air while she was treated like something just shy of a masturbation-aid, she was certainly getting her money's worth, Anitra reflected - and indeed, it did_look like she was enjoying it fully, based on the way her hands were eagerly gripping Melora's far-thicker wrists, and the depraved O-face she was already showing. Odds were that she'd reach any _number_of such orgasms before Melora's straining balls were able to push an ejaculation past the three rings - and looking at the dark joy in the masochistic mare's face as those rings bit into her tender cock with every stroke, _she'd be enjoying the process quite thoroughly as well.

As they continued rutting, Anitra let her gaze pan across the rest of the assembly, her fingers working steadily more forcefully between her legs. Ursula and Ariel were still going at it, but hopefully they'd soon start mingling - there were probably others eager to sample the sea-witch's oddly-shaped cock. Direza had already finished with her rear orifice, though, and moved on to the vicinity of Manushya's bondage-cart - where Kylaees seemed to have recently finished pounding the tigress' asshole. The rutting she-devil, however, didn't seem content to just let Direza lick her cock clean, and was instead throat-fucking the dark elf with her fingers buried in the pale tresses above.

With a final glance over at Tiffany - who was rounding out her tour of Manushya's holes by ramming her cock up the no doubt still-loose asshole that Kylaees had so recently vacated - Anitra came, with most of one hand buried inside her pussy while the fingers of the other furiously rubbed her clit. A buffet of perverted and erotic sights were spread out before her - and the party was still only getting started!

Indeed, things only escalated from there. Once Ursula and Ariel got tired of their little corner, they soon joined the rest of the party on center stage - and from that point onward, Manushya rarely went a minute without being vigorously spitroasted, or alternately having a wet, cum-dripping pussy shoved into her face while a hard cock pounded one of her increasingly well-worn nether holes. Well, except for when Gisela spent a good ten minutes noisily and sloppily making out with her, anyway.

In fact, Gisela Goodsong proved an overall fine addition to the debauchery and excess of the orgy - not only did she, as intended, spend most of it walking around slightly bow-legged thanks to the thick butt-plug lodged up her ass, keeping her thick ass-cheeks spread and the bucketload of horse-cum Melora had ultimately deposited within her from leaking out, but she was also the first one to avail herself of Direza's promised urinal-services. Assisted no doubt by her obvious appetite for the various drinks that remained cluttered around the buffet-tables - and the presumably diminutive size of her bladder - she soon had the drow lodged between her thighs once more, tongue teasing her wet folds while a steady stream of sour piss played across it before ultimately pouring down the waiting throat to be swallowed.

This broke the ice - or perhaps rather broke the dam - on that side of Direza's assigned duties, and several others soon called upon her for the same reason. Anitra, when not too busy enjoying the general show and masturbating, kept a close eye on her - this was, after all, a new level of humiliation for Direza. She'd been through carefully-planned mistreatment at the hands - and claws - of a series of individuals before, both when 'interning' with the Free Lovers and earlier, when she'd been stuck as an exotic pet to a number of dragons. But this was the first time she'd been called upon to humiliate herself before a large group, and indeed the first time she'd been tasked to drink the piss of anyone but Anitra herself. How much difference that last bit would really make was uncertain, considering that she'd previously provided both ass-to-mouth services and rimjobs to a number of creatures, including a donkey, but Anitra nonetheless felt the need to keep an eye on how she was handling it.

For the most part, the answer seemed to be 'quite well, thank-you'. Even from a distance, Anitra could easily tell that Direza was in that special state of squirming, perpetually-embarrassed humiliation that seemed to make her hornier than anything. Being ordered around by the party-guests, not just as a living pissoir but also as a cock-cleaner and massager of sore, freshly-fucked assholes, was clearly hitting all the right buttons with her. Melora's 'quest' kept her quite busy on the later count, too - and it was quite telling just how many empty-eyed, open-mouthed, rapid-fire orgasms seemed to hit her when her friend and colleague at last got around to visiting _her_ass. It had all the hallmarks of a wagonload of pent-up horniness finally finding release...

That particular session was a nice touch, too - Blake's orders had specified that Melora's targets were the tender assholes of all the_guests_, but if pressed, she could simply claim to be 'making sure'. And not, y'know, simply doing a favor for a friend whom she could tell was growing dangerously pent-up. Nobody else had seen fit to request access to Direza's officially-available holes - whether because other orifices were more easily available, such as Manushya's, or just because they felt awkward about taking advantage of her submissive attitude. Only Gisela seemed inclined to call on her for anything other than her stated duties - and she was clearly more interested in her talented tongue, which was getting plenty of action regardless...

On pattern did emerge to hint at an aspect of her duties that Direza was less than pleased with, however. Most notable had been the conclusion of the throat-fuck Kylaees had dished out - the she-devil, despite being clearly in the grips of the all-consuming fog of pleasure, desire and lust that hung thick in the room, clearly retained enough self-control to be conscious of her partner's physical limitations. She'd pulled her cock out every few strokes to let Direza catch a few mouthfuls of fresh air, keeping the pressure on by jacking herself off while the drow gasped for breath. As it happened, she'd reached completion during one of these segments - blasting her spicy demon-cum all across Direza's ash-gray features in a spectacular facial.

The way she'd flinched from this, and the hurried fashion in which she'd wiped the sticky goo from her face - reminding Anitra of someone who'd just unwarily walked into a spiderweb, though on reflection,that probably wouldn't have caused any consternation in someone who'd grown up as a Priestess of Lolth - made her hesitation in other cum-adjacent situations more noticeable all of a sudden. She'd tongue a still-gaping asshole with aplomb, massaging and soothing the stretched sphincter, with no apparent thought for the flavors involved - but once the freshly-fucked orifice started drooling cum from its dank depths, there was always a moment of hesitation, a barely-suppressed grimace, before she drank it down in keeping with her duties. Indeed, on reflection, it almost seemed like she'd rush to any such orifice as soon as it was vacated, in the hopes of finishing up her work there before any such leakage could occur...

Well, Anitra reflected, Direza was fundamentally a lesbian. All her interactions with cocks and the products thereof were part of the various games of submission and humiliation that Anitra routinely set before her. It wasn't as if a good fucking couldn't make her cum- as she'd recently demonstrated in abundance - but she was definitely more comfortable when that cock was attached to a woman. Or a mare, as the case may be. In general, it seemed like she'd grown accustomed to dealing with cocks by now... but still preferred everything from sour piss to bitter ass-slime over the salty flavor of cum. This, Anitra thought as a particularly nasty idea began to grow in the back of her mind, could be worth filing away for later...

Regardless, the party carried on, with many hijinks along the way - most of them involving the vivacious Goodsong girl. Among other accomplishments, she demonstrated that her last name wasn't just an affection by jumping up on a mostly-empty table and doing an erotic dance while singing a truly filthy song about a horny knight on a quest to 'save' a particularly buxom maiden who'd been kidnapped by a terrible dragon. Several of the other girls soon joined in for the refrain, at least - concerning him riding along with a cock as hard as the iron pants that contained it - with Ariel's soaring, silvery singing-voice being a particularly hilarious fit for such a coarse song. The final verse had everyone, Anitra included, in stitches - upon finally reaching his goal, having turned down numerous other opportunities to get his dick wet along the way, he found that the buxom maiden was busy getting her brains fucked out by the dragon, and entirely disinterested in rescue. With nowhere else to go, the knight was thus left to work off his frustrations with the trusty mare he'd ridden for so long... so at least, the song concluded, the_mare_ hadn't ridden in vain!

Between the bestiality and the dragon-on-maiden bit, it was obviously a song well-suited for the audience - though a slightly detached part of Anitra's mind couldn't help but wonder whether it was based on any kind of true story. Generally, tales of dragons stealing maidens involved black dragons who, like her own Blake, had grown desperate from their enforced isolation and sought any kind of release they could get. The dragon's color wasn't mentioned in the song, though, and if the maiden was human - which also hadn't been specified, technically speaking - it was unlikely that she'd actually wind up enjoying the experience, considering the nasty reaction that a black dragon's cum sparked when it came into contact with even the smallest amount of human blood. Unless, again, that maiden was an elf or half-elf or whatever, or better yet a potential_DragonRider_, though of course the color of her hair_hadn't been specified _either. Or maybe it was just a funny and naughty song and she should stop thinking about it.

Calling Gisela over to provide her own compliments on the entertainment, meanwhile, both gave her the opportunity to learn that Gisela had been born into a family of bards and musicians - a much-respected pursuit among the halflings - hence her name, and let her set up the next hijink. After promising that she'd make sure that Melora would be sent on errands to her jewelry-stand soon, she was able to convince Gisela - after some mildly annoyed eye-rolling - to provide her with a demonstration of one of the halflings' more_infamous_ talents: Their skill at sleigh-of-hand and pickpocketing.

There weren't any pockets left to pick in the room at this point, however, so instead Gisela was tasked to deliver something - an intricately-carved obsidian ring, to be specific - to a particular_spot_. Namely, one of Ursula's fingers. Gisela accomplished this with such effortless ease that Anitra - despite her inhumanly-sharp eyes - couldn't tell how she'd done it even while specifically watching for it. Ursula didn't notice either... at least not at first. Around fifteen minutes later, though, she did - and it didn't take her very long at all to guess where it had come from, even if she couldn't figure out how it had been delivered.

"I suppose there's a reason for this?" she asked, somewhat acerbically, as she walked up in front of Anitra's chair, sporting a throbbing erection that looked outright painful. Spending fifteen minutes pounding a soft, subtle piece of tigress pussy without being able to actually cum had that kind of effect, Anitra figured as she grinned in response. "Well, yes..." she answered in a drawl. "I know you're still new at this whole 'not being evil' thing, so I thought I'd give you another quick lesson. The key, you see, is to remember that actions have consequences, even if they aren't immediate. You may think you've gotten away with something - like, say, destroying several people's favorite dresses - but sooner or later, your deeds _will_catch up with you..."

Ursula spent the next hour working on her own quest - namely, getting everyone whose dress her opening prank had destroyed off with her mouth - with that same, painfully throbbing octopus-cock swinging between her legs. Only once she'd managed to do so - which involved a lot more blowjobs than pussy-licking, seeing as Gisela was the only holdout at this point, with Ariel's curiosity having already led her to requesting the application of the dick-summoning spell as well - did Anitra relent and remove the cursed Anecstatic Ring from her finger.

Not long after that point, the first-applied spells began to wear off - returning Ursula and Tiffany to their original, purely feminine physiology. This had two consequences - firstly, Manushya's holes were now less in demand, what with there being fewer dicks to go 'round, and secondly the wall-o-sextoys started to get more readily plundered. Though, that last bit might have had as much to do with Ursula's punishment as the sudden need for additional dildos. Prior to this, only Gisela had taken advantage of the selection, but after finishing her sentence of oral service and finally getting her rocks off - something she managed to do just minutes before her dick faded away into nothing again - Ursula had reached for the more_hardcore_ toys.

Considering that the wall had mostly been populated with an eye towards Melora and Direza's tastes, there was no shortage of such things - and apparently, Ursula felt the need to reassert herself somewhat, by way of a nine-tailed cat. It wasn't one of the really nasty torture-tools that Blake had acquired for Melora, and indeed more closely tailored for Direza's more moderate preferences, but it could still dish out plenty of pain if wielded correctly - or plenty of damage if wielded incorrectly - enough so that Anitra kept a rather close eye on the sea-witch as she went to town on the helpless Manushya with it. Fortunately, her misgivings proved unfounded - it soon became clear that Ursula knew her way around such tools of punishment just fine.

Manushya trembled and groaned in her bonds as the blows across her exposed groin, where the thin fur provided little in the way of defense even outside the fleshy, pink parts. Each swing of the cat drew nine lines of bright pain across the sensitive bits - but they weren't falling harshly enough to do do any real damage, nor causing enough pain to overwhelm whatever masochistic tendencies Manushya possessed. Indeed, her obvious enjoyment of the rough treatment drew both a jealous glance from Melora, and more intrigued ones from the other guests - and soon, several other tools were being taken off the wall and applied to her, and others.

Torturous clamps soon found their way to Manushya's nipples and clit, along with a long rod topped with a small lightning-crystal that could readily unleash painful stings of magical electricity upon any fleshy bits it was brought into contact with. While she shuddered and moaned in torment, meanwhile, Gisela proved herself to be a deft hand with a paddle - and shortly introduced Ariel to the pleasure of having your cheeks reddened and tenderized prior to some more traditional stimulation, though that seemed about the limit for her. Melora, on the other hand, was more than eager to let Gisela work _her_over with the paddle until she bruised - buttocks, balls, _and_her heavy, milk-dribbling tits alike. Ariel got the side of the paddle that was covered in soft leather - Melora got the side that was metal-studded hardwood. A most flexible instrument, Anitra had always thought...

She_did_ have to step in at one point, however. Tiffany, clearly quite capable of seeing how much Manushya was enjoying the rough treatment she was receiving, apparently decided to get in on the action, and looked through the wall-o-sextoys for a way to join the fun. Unfortunately, her curiosity drew her eye to a small box, which she opened - before withdrawing a couple of needle-like spines with a bemused expression and far less care than was sensible. Fortunately, a raised hand from Anitra quickly drew Direza's attention, and the drow was sent across the floor to intercept Tiffany without the need to shout over the din of moans and disrupt the party. The befreckled redhead blanched as Direza explained to her exactly how nasty the 'needles' were, and they were swiftly returned to the box, which Direza subsequently moved away from the other toys to avoid further misunderstandings. Anitra wasn't sure whether the agonizing poison injected by those needles would have gone beyond what Manushya's demonstrated masochism could handle, but she didn't want to push that particular envelope yet.

Somewhere along the way, Melora finished her assigned 'quest', too - indeed, the size and thickness of her iron-banded cock had failed to really intimidate any of the guests, but then they were a rather eclectic group of creatures. Ariel was the only one who'd had any kind of trouble with it - and she compensated for this with a boundless supply of go-getter spirit, clearly determined to test the limits of her brand-new orifices. She gaped spectacularly, and even prolapsed briefly, but rapidly recovered and indeed seemed to have enjoyed the experience - certainly, she didn't show any reluctance towards further anal intrusions, although she never sampled anything_quite_ as girthy as Melora's rod again while Anitra was watching.

Throughout the festivities, the guests largely obeyed the suggestion to pay Anitra no mind, simply letting her draw voyeuristic pleasure from the perverted orgy they were indulging in - but that wasn't to say that they didn't occasionally swing by her side to talk, be it about matters naughty or mundane. As the party began to wind down, Tiffany found her way to the 'throne', and her question was one of old fashioned, feminine concern. "Are you really that... hampered by your condition?" She asked quietly, looking at the large, taut-skinned hemisphere of Anitra's distended belly. "I mean... I thought, since you're the DragonRider and all, the extra weight wouldn't be such a big deal?"

Coming from someone else, Anitra might have found this kind of question grating, or even insulting - but she knew that Tiffany was largely talking from a place of idolization. She was the first one to have looked as Anitra as a hero, something that had proven to have a significant impact down the road, and she could easily see how this perspective might make her wonder why something as mundane as a pregnancy could cripple her so thoroughly. "Well, my draconic strength definitely does help..." Anitra explained, rubbing her heavy, oversized belly. "But the thing is, I NEED all the help I can get!"

She had awakened to the powers of the DragonRider at age 16, barely more than a girl. At that moment of awakening, some parts of her body had... aged forwards, rather rapidly, most notably her chest and her hips, but the rest of her physique remained what her mother had once called 'wispy'. And since then, she hadn't aged a day - not a_minute_ - nor would she, so long as Blake remained alive and the bond between them intact. She'd managed to put on a bit of muscle over the course of her career as an adventurer, but even that was rather limited - whether because her altered body was resistant to such development, or simply because the supernatural forces backing her strength prevented her from properly exerting herself in most cases, she did not know. But the upshot of it all was that, a few details aside, she was stuck with the body of a skinny 16-year-old girl, carrying a pregnancy that was significantly longer than any regular human's would be. If it hadn't been for the advantages of her part-dragon nature, she would've likely been entirely bedridden for the past couple of months, and the healers wouldn't have given her particularly good odds of surviving childbirth.

Anitra meticulously explained all this to Tiffany, along with the fact that her draconically-enhanced musculature was better suited for bursts of explosive strength, such as making dramatic leaps or swinging a sword with inhuman force, than to the constant wear and tear that came from carrying around such a large, heavy, awkward burden. It was, she decided, rather... nice to have someone she could talk about stuff like that with, without feeling like she was exposing dangerous weaknesses. It wasn't as if Direza didn't know about all of it, but the nature of their relationship rather precluded her from exposing her vulnerabilities to the drow - she was supposed to be strong, majestic, in charge, all the time! Besides, there was a sort of... warm, fuzzy glow to it, reminding her of that dreadful, final battle which had earned her and Blake entry into the Utopia, when she'd faced down impossible odds only to realize that some of the people they'd helped - or at least left a positive impression on - along the way, had turned up to help them.

Tiffany hadn't been among them, of course - nor would she, a simple farmer's daughter with a shipload of trauma in her background, have been able to provide any material assistance if she had. But by the same token, Anitra had no doubt that Tiffany happily would_have leaped into the line of fire for her if she _had that kind of ability - and frankly, this kind of thing was just as nice. And then... it got better. As Anitra detailed the various muscle-aches and pains that so rapidly cropped up throughout her lower body whenever she spent more than a couple of minutes on her feet, Tiffany's eyes suddenly lit up. "Hey - I might be able to help you with that!" she proudly declared.

Turned out, while working with the Free Lovers, she'd started to take lessons from some of the other girls. Her 'natural', down-home charm and befreckled girl-next-door looks had won her many admirers, but she still felt a bit insecure about her qualifications next to girls who had literally and meticulously been trained as high-priced sex-slaves and professional courtesans, whereas her experience rounded down to spending most of her life being treated as a disposable sex-toy by, in chronological order; her crazed father, a tribe of shemale Amazons, and a fortressful of sadistic demons. None of whom had been particularly interested in teaching her anything other than how to shut up and obediently spread her legs for their amusement.

Among the new skills she was now picking up, however, was the arts of the masseuse - ever popular among women in her chosen career. It was, after all, just a slightly different variant on the theme of mostly-naked skin-on-skin contact. "And from what I've learned, a hot oil massage will be just the thing for easing your sore muscles!" Tiffany concluded, then wrinkled her brow. "Umm... assuming you have some hot oil on hand. It's... not like I thought to bring any, I'll admit." Fortunately, it wasn't hard to improvise something. While saliva and pussy-juice was the most popular lubricant among the four permanent residents of the Champion's Quarters, circumstances occasionally called for something else, and since this might involve Blake's impressively-sized cock, the vat of lubricating oil they kept around for such occasions was more than big enough to make it a viable substitute. The chocolate fondue bowl - which was largely empty at this point anyway - was then removed from the buffet-table, and the small burner underneath repurposed as an oil-heater.

Shortly afterwards, Anitra found herself on her belly - not a position she'd spent much time in for the last several months, but in this case a carefully-arranged mound of pillows gathered from both the chambers' main nest and the servants' quarters surrounded her midsection, supporting her body in reasonable comfort while Tiffany set to work. Soft, yet firm hands, made slippery by the warm oil, massaged long-tensed leg-muscles, running smoothly up and down the thighs, then across the buttocks to the small of the back and beyond. Whoever Tiffany's teachers were, Anitra decided, they were doing a fine job - the former farm-girl and tragic abuse-victim had clearly already picked up some excellent skills. And if there was some rough edges to her touch still, well, that just made it feel more like a massage provided by a good friend or a lover, rather than a coldly perfect professional.

Closer to 'lover' than 'good friend', unless it was 'with benefits', Anitra then thought as Tiffany's hands again caressed her ass-cheeks, squeezing the firm flesh. Her rear was one of the places where she'd received some added padding in her initial DragonRider-transformation, possibly in order to provide her ass with the strength needed to squeeze itself back into shape after Blake got done with it, and Tiffany seemed to delight in the feeling of the hard, yet subtle muscles flexing under her hands as her fingers brushed lightly across the sensitive sphincter hiding between them.

When Tiffany finally moved further up, running her deft hands up the full length of Anitra's spine, this was accomplished by leaning bodily across from her starting-position between Anitra's legs, until she could feel her masseuse's bountiful breasts rubbing against the small of her back. Considering who'd taught Tiffany these arts, one had to wonder if this rather erotic behavior was an expression of some bubbling desire focused on Anitra, or just a natural consequence of having been trained by courtesans, prostitutes and former sex-slaves. Increasingly, however, Anitra didn't care.

The general atmosphere helped - increasingly, the party-guests had worn themselves out with the various carnal acrobatics, and with a growing number of cocks disappearing from the equation, the tone gradually shifted to from 'perverted excess' to one of sapphic decadence. Rather than furious humping, the interactions now largely involved various configurations of tongues, fingers, lips - upper and_nether _- and some of the more sedate and restrained toys that the wall had to offer. Instead of orgasmic screams and the wet slaps of colliding flesh, the sweet sounds of slow, deliberate squelching and soft, drawn-out moans could now be heard.

A critical glance around the room suggested that Gisela - true to the halflings' stereotypical reputation for being able to party virtually every other species under the table - still had plenty of energy left, but also didn't have any objection to the direction things were moving in. Her little corner of the orgy was still a bit more energetic than the rest - for starters, she still kept the paddle close at hand - and she still seemed determined to spend as much time around Melora as she could manage. For the moment, she was attacking Kylaees' pussy with much aplomb, fingers pistoning while her tongue caressed the clit and outer lips - even as the she-devil sat fully-impaled atop Melora's iron-banded erection.

Kylaees, for her part, also wasn't likely to run out of steam anytime soon - but her emotion-draining nature made her something of a barometer of the general mood. Once the other guests descended from the peaks of lustful ecstasy, she followed suit - and going by the expression on her face, she found the current flow of languid, decadent pleasure just as delicious. Anitra had no trouble understanding that, either. She generally preferred a high-energy fucking, loaded with raw, untamed lust and need, but once in a while she, too, enjoyed lingering in a softer, more gentle world for a while.

And come to think of it, it had been a while since she'd last done so. Oh, sure, Direza technically provided her with all the lesbian fun-times she could possibly desire, but their interactions were always more about the power-relationship, rife with humiliation and domination, rather than their respective genders. Really, unless she wanted to count her recent underwater acrobatics with Ariel and Ursula, which she really didn't feel she could - what with the fish-tails and octopoid tentacles involved - the last time had probably been... hmm... the Seraglio in Mirage City, probably? And before that, her first meeting with Pamila and Pfil in the Forest of the Fairies. Rare incidents indeed... but, no time like the present!

Slipping out from underneath the increasingly oiled-up Tiffany's hands, she rolled over amidst the pillows - for obvious reasons, they'd all been layered in simple, stain-rejecting enchantments, so she wasn't too concerned about getting them oily - and flashed her old friend with her best come-hither look and her still-spread legs. "Why don't you do my front next?" she asked seductively, wetting her lips... and that was all it took. Moments later, the massage escalated to the 'happy ending' stage, and their lips locked together while oily fingers sought yielding holes.

Soft lips, wet tongues, gently-biting teeth... strong, subtle fingers so thoroughly oily that they slipped through sphincters as easily as the engorged lips of a dripping-wet pussy... soft and tender tits, topped with erect, pebble-like nipples, deliciously yielding in a firm grip... smooth skin made smoother yet by the omnipresent oil... soft, breathless moans, cut short by a catching breath... the distinct taste of feminine arousal, mixed with the warm, mellow flavor of the oil... it all blended into an indistinct, softly-lit whole as Anitra climbed oh-so-slowly towards the orgasmic peaks, taking the scenic route for once.

She lingered there for some time, once she finally arrived - drawing short, gasping breaths as her fingers instinctively tightened around Tiffany's soft, yet firm buttocks, pulling the redhead's groin closer and eagerly returning the favor. She had to remind herself, quite firmly, not to use her full strength as she wrapped her oiled-up legs around the head of crimson curls that was busily working away between her thighs, lest she accidentally snap the neck of her regular, human partner. Tiffany's whole body, all shiny with oil, seemed wrapped around her, her hands still roaming, massaging and stroking whatever they could reach - her flanks, her ass, her legs and thighs, and indeed her glossy and grandly-curved belly.

Eventually, the fog of the slow-building orgasm cleared - and the two of them rolled apart as they gasped for air, heart-rates slowing once more. "Thanks, Tiff. I think I needed that..." Anitra said, somewhat dreamily, once she'd gotten her breath back. It had ultimately been the most active and physically demanding intercourse she'd had for months, but thanks to the deep massage that had preceded it, she didn't feel as sore or fatigued as she normally would have. Still tired, just... a relaxed, leaned-back sort of tired.

Tiffany giggled in reply. "I'm just glad I could pay you back for all the times you've helped me, in some small way. Though... maybe this wouldn't be a bad time to ask for a favor?" Anitra grunted and pulled a couple of pillow closer, wedging them under her back so that she could reach something vaguely resembling a sitting position. "I suppose not... what do you need?" She replied, wondering idly whether Tiffany had somehow managed to get herself into some kind of fresh trouble despite all attempts to prevent it.

As it turned out, though, this wasn't what she had been getting at. Instead, Tiffany gestured towards the still-bound Manushya. "Well, I was wondering if you could maybe... let that girl loose? I'd... kind of like to get to know her. In ways other than the carnal, I mean. Not that having her available in that way hasn't been delightful!" she hastily added while Anitra threw a pondering glance at the Rakshasi. With the changing energy of the orgy, she'd been left somewhat by the wayside regardless. By now, even Ariel's cock had vanished again, and with Kylaees pulled into the general atmosphere of sapphic delights, only Melora was still sporting a functional cock - clearly unwilling to remove the Ring of Priap, since this would also mean losing the iron bands that had so ruthlessly tortured her shaft throughout the evening.

At the moment, even she wasn't availing herself of Manushya's services, though. Instead, Gisela had apparently - on the silent feet her kind were so infamous for - purloined some of the hot oil that Anitra and Tiffany had been playing with, and was now rubbing her whole, oiled-up body up and down the mare's impressive shaft, embracing it with arms, thighs, lips and breasts all at once. The only one currently paying any attention to the helplessly bound tigress was Ursula, who apparently felt the need to indulge herself in a bit more sadism after a round of overly-sugary lesbian indulgences. She was currently wielding a thin cane with welt-inducing force, sending jolts of trembling through Manushya's tightly-bound body every time it fell on her already swollen-and-bruised pussy. It was, frankly, a bit more hardcore than anything Anitra and Blake had done to her during their first meeting - at least in terms of pure pain - but all the same, she seemed to be getting into the spirit of it.

As the cane fell again and again, Manushya's moans grew steadily more high-pitched, until the final one - unerringly aimed to land directly between her reddened labia, sending up a spray of pussy-juice and lashing directly across her clit - seemingly pushed her over the edge. A drawn-out groan resounded from her ring-gag-spread mouth as the tremors continued to roll through her body for several seconds, all while Ursula took a step back to admire her handiwork. A lovely sight... but all the same, Tiffany had a point. And as Ursula put down the cane and sauntered towards the tables where the refreshments still waited, kept cold or hot as needed by various minor enchantments, nobody seemed in a rush to take her place and lay claim to the tigress' naked and fully-accessible body.

With a shrug, Anitra puckered her lips and whistled sharply, causing both Melora and Direza to raise their heads attentively from amidst the knot of slowly-undulating female bodies that made up the current heart of the orgy. Gesturing towards Manushya, she gave the order - "Let her loose" - and watched with some amusement as the two of them promptly extricated themselves from various erotic entanglements to a chorus of disappointed moans. While the two of them started undoing the various restraints holding the Rakshasi immobile, she then rolled back over on her belly amidst the pliable pillows and grinned up at Tiffany, who was already smiling broadly. "There. Your wish fulfilled! Now, how about continuing with the massage that was so pleasantly interrupted earlier..."

While Tiffany's talented hands dutifully resumed their earlier task - by now more of an indulgence than anything else - Manushya was brought down from her suspended bondage, and the clamps, ring-gag and blindfold were removed. It took her a few minutes to recover, wincing and rubbing her arms and legs - circulation having presumably been somewhat impacted by the way her limbs had been bent double for so long. She was still limping when she subsequently made her way over to the buffet-tables - which, while somewhat less bountiful than they had been when the evening started, still retained plenty for a hungry and thirsty tigress to eat and drink. Finally, she made it clear that even while bound and blindfolded, her ears had still worked just fine - by grabbing Direza just as she was starting to worm her way back into the press of amorously entangled bodies and emptying her no doubt straining bladder into the obedient drow's open mouth.

Only once these necessary details had been taken care of did Manushya make her way over, on still somewhat-shaky legs, to give Tiffany a grateful nod. "Thanks for getting me down from there..." she said, completely ignoring Anitra, who was still enjoying her time beneath Tiffany's hands. The befreckled farmgirl grinned back, her hands never pausing. "No problem - I figured you'd be getting a bit tired of it by now. And besides, I've been meaning to learn more about your kind for a while!" Sighing, Manushya grabbed a pillow and sat down on it - somewhat tenderly and not without a wince - while rubbing her nipples and groin in a way that seemed noticeably more pained than erotic. "Tired... hah. That's one way to put it, I guess..." she groused.

Tiffany's hands paused. "Didn't you enjoy it? It looked like you did, and you did seem to, you know, implicitly agree to it at first..." she asked, concern in her voice. "I'm sure Anitra would have let you down earlier if you didn't like it!" Manushya's sharp, feline eyes darted down to Anitra - who was placidly enjoying the shortly-resumed massage and doing her best to act as if the conversation had nothing to do with her - for a brief moment before flickering back to Tiffany's. "Sure of that, are you?" She commented dryly, then sighed and rubbed her shoulder, working it in a circle to the sound of loud popping. "Well... I suppose I_did_ enjoy it, in a manner of speaking. Actually, with all the time I spent 'hanging around' there, I think I finally figured it out."

"Figured what out?" Tiffany asked, rather inevitably, while Anitra continued to pretend disinterest even as she sharpened her ears. "The appeal. For me, that is..." Manushya answered, before explaining - with a somewhat scornful glance down at Anitra, to make it clear that her attitude wasn't fooling anyone. "It's the helplessness_that does it for me. Whether it's being forced to submit by someone with a strong will - and maybe some powerful blackmail-material, hah! - or being in a more literal, physical kind of bondage. While I was hanging there... I couldn't do anything. Couldn't move, couldn't talk, couldn't even beg for mercy. All I _could do was just... take whatever was dished out to me. Somehow, that just made it all so much more... intense. And, ultimately, pleasurable. Even things I would've hated - things that would've been just plain torture - in any other context... when I didn't have a choice, it actually made me cum."

Anitra nodded inwardly. What Manushya was talking about wasn't her_cup of tea, and it was also subtly different from either Direza's monomaniac love of humiliation and domination, and Melora's masochistic pain-obsession. But she _got it. A pleasure specifically derived from the loss of control - with pain and pleasure flowing together specifically because you have no control over which, whether and when they were applied to you. Yet another color on the manifold rainbow of perversion she'd grown ever-more familiar with since the night where she'd lost her virginity - and humanity - in a Quickening-dazed orgy of sex and violence.

Tiffany was no less understanding, and by way of reply spoke openly about her own love of animals - the way knowing that their interest in her was purely instinctive, starting and ending with raw, mindless rutting, with no prejudices, plans or expectations hiding behind it, and no strings attached. They didn't expect anything of her except for a chance to get their rocks off, and wouldn't judge or stereotype her for her willingness to spread her legs for them. They wouldn't lose respect for her, because the very concept of 'respect' was entirely beyond her. Anitra had to nod at this as well - she'd never really thought it through in that fashion, but she'd enjoyed most of her own past encounters of the bestial kind, due to the sense of raw, unfettered, uncomplicated animal lust she'd felt from her partners. So this too, she got.

Once the two young women - who had come from vastly different backgrounds, cultures and species - were done bonding over their respective perversions, the subject matter grew somewhat more innocuous for a bit, as Tiffany questioned Manushya about life in the Rakshasa enclave, her people's adaption to life in the Utopia, their powers and abilities, how much of those powers they were able to access through the use of the alchemically-created 'Blood-potions' they now had access to, and various other trivia Anitra genuinely_didn't care much about. Well, it wasn't as if it didn't _matter_how well or how poorly the Rakshasa were adapting to their new home, but dealing with that stuff wasn't _her job, so... meh.

She was halfway to dozing off under the influence of Tiffany's continued massage-efforts, which had lost none of their comfort-inducing effects for now being less overtly erotic, when the topic again swung back to something she found interesting. Apparently, through her 'professional contacts' and general gossip, Tiffany had learned that the Rakshasi - which was, as Anitra had learned during the trip to Ganarãjya, the correct term for a female Rakshasa - were extremely popular among the Utopia's admittedly limited population of young men, be they human, Equus, or otherwise.

Anitra suspected that much of this popularity was down to the younger Rakshasi being desperately eager to experience a romance that was neither carefully pre-arranged by their parents and tied up in a driving need to produce cubs and thus delay their species' inevitable decline into ultimate extinction, nor rife with the anxieties of having to carefully conceal your true self and knowing that your love would never truly work out since the young man of your dreams would eagerly lead a murderous mob to your door if he ever discovered what you are. They were, in other words, extremely eager to please and deliriously happy to just not be actively hated.

Tiffany, however, seemed to think that it was mostly down to a combination of their exotically attractive fur-patterns, and their illusion-based shape-shifting abilities. Which, Anitra had to admit, probably were_factors as well. After all, what young man wouldn't love a girlfriend who could be _anyone he wanted them to, changing her entire appearance at the drop of a hat, shifting to whatever form she thought might please him? Especially when, as previously mentioned, she is just so eager to be liked that she isn't going to take any offense at requests of that nature.

One thing that certainly was clear, from Manushya's replies, was that young Rakshasi - now finally able to socialize freely with one another - gossiped just as readily and unrestrainedly as human girls that age. Including about the... preferences of their 'boyfriends'. Well, it helped that all of them understood perfectly well that they were basically being allowed to have some consequence-free fun, enjoying their newfound freedom, with the understanding that they'd soon be expected to settle down with a strapping young Rakshasa and pump out a parcel of cubs in the name of repopulating their flagging species. Still, they were clearly determined to make the most of this brief window of liberty, and their various boyfriends were just as clearly happy to 'help' with that...

"It's funny, really, how all these horny young men - offered the chance to basically bed whoever or what_ever they want - all seem to ask for the same things in the end..." Manushya commented in a voice that struck Anitra as being strangely taunting. "I mean, listening to the other girls gossip, it's really depressing how few of their 'friends' posses even an _ounce of creativity. Once they started comparing notes, why, it turned out that virtually every last one of them had been asked to take on the _exact same form_at one time or another. Indeed, more than half of them had found it becoming a perennial favorite of their paramour!"

Hearing a spiel like that, Anitra would have been tempted to actively refrain from asking 'What form would that be, then?', just because of how obviously she was being baited to do that exact thing. Tiffany, however, was clearly under no such restraint. "Oooh! What form? Do tell!" She asked excitedly, and Anitra peered up at Manushya's widening, predatory grin with a dawning suspicion in the back of her mind. "Why, this one, of course..." Manushya replied, as her entire body grew momentarily foggy and instinct - and then sharpened into a very different form from before.

Pale, unblemished skin, taut across an enticing combination of well-toned muscle and soft, feminine curves. Generous chest, hips and buttocks, with hardly a gram of fat visible outside those areas. Long, raven-black tresses, falling to halfway down the spine, almost gleaming in the soft light. Lips that seemed almost too full and red to be natural, as if gifted with built-in makeup by nature's hand. A body that somehow seemed young, fresh and tight, while simultaneously oozing with experienced, well-practiced sensuality. And as the final capstone, those unnatural eyes - the vertically-slit pupils of a snake or a great jungle-cat, set around an azure-blue iris, as if to create the perfect symbol of her mixed nature.

It was Anitra herself, of course - or rather, she thought with a sting of annoyance, the way she had looked, before her pregnancy started to show. And possibly a touch idealized on top of that, even. Tiffany, meanwhile, was giggling with undisguised delight - to the point of being forced to stop the massage, which would otherwise likely have grown intolerably jerky. "Of course! I should have realized!" she declared, once she had her mouth under control again. "Everyone's seen her, after all, at least from a distance, and... well, you can hardly blame those young men for finding it hard to forget about her."

Anitra, meanwhile, wasn't really sure how she was supposed to feel, knowing that somewhere out there, dozens of visually-perfect copies of herself were being gleefully fucked by a variety of awkward teenage boys and horny twentysomethings. Flattered? Creeped out? Jealous? Some combination of all the above? Well... she really couldn't_disagree_ with what Tiffany said about it being hard to blame those young men who requested that particular illusion, nor had she failed to consider the likelihood before. After all, she _was_really hot. Especially in those seductive poses Manushya was now cycling through as if trying to prove her point. Actually...

Pushing Tiffany's oil-slick hands away, she rolled up on her side again. The massage had become less seductive as the masseuse grew more preoccupied with her conversation, and by now she was in mood for something different. The party, she could tell, was starting to wind down, so if she wanted to have a bit more fun before it died altogether, it was probably time to act. "Thanks for the massage, Tiff... why don't you go see if anyone else has any... kinks_to work out, hmm? And while you're at it, grab Direza, give her a slap on the bum from me, and send her over here." Tiffany looked briefly put out by this rather summary dismissal, but then she glanced from the suddenly narrow-eyed Manushya - still in her dreamily-perfect non-pregnant Anitra-form - to the _real Anitra and her naughty smile, and complied with a grin.

"Manushya... it occurs to me that since you've just been... hanging around_all evening, _you are bound to still have some energy left to spend, no?" Anitra then continued as soon as Tiffany was in motion, before the currently-transformed Rakshasi could find the breath to excuse herself. Manushya snorted in reply. "Being tied up, immobile, while you're alternatingly raped, tortured and ignored is actually rather more tiring than you'd think..." she replied harshly, but her expression remained too speculative to entirely match her words.

Anitra chuckled, too eager to pursue the idea that just popped into her lust-soaked mind to take offense, never mind quibble about Manushya's arguably erroneous use of the term 'rape'. "Come, now, there's no need to be so... adversarial!" she thus said, rolling her eyes. "In fact, if you're genuinely still feeling hard done by, well, here's your chance to get some of your own back." This clearly whetted Manushya's curiosity, but before she could reply, Direza arrived with an oily hand-print on one buttock and a pair of hungry eyes that seemed hard-pressed to decide which of the two versions of her beloved mistress she'd rather ogle.

"Ah, my dear pet... grab the last of the scrolls, and use it on my twin here!" Anitra grandly declared with a gesture towards Manushya, whose eyebrows rose in reply. The scroll in question wasn't far away, having been left on the side-table attached to Anitra's currently unoccupied 'throne'. It had originally been meant for Gisela Goodsong's use, but she'd neglected to use it - and seemed unlikely to change her mind at this point. "What are you plotting?" Manushya demanded, suspicion warring with a combination of curiosity and lust in her eyes - a rather unequal battle, in Anitra's opinion.

Anitra grinned and rolled over on her back midst the pillows, legs spread to show off her oiled-up groin as she ran one hand down there to spread her pussy-lips with a two-fingered grip. "Oh, nothing complicated, my dear. Just let Direza cast that spell on you, and then... fuck me, any way you like. Have your way with me! My pregnant pussy, my oiled-up asshole, my hungry mouth... take your pick and go at it until you've had your fill! Just so long as you maintain that particular form..."

Manushya barked a laugh, but her eyes didn't leave the pink wedge Anitra was so proudly showing off. "You basically want to get fucked by_yourself?_ Talk about being narcissistic in the most literal way possible! Well, have it your way - I doubt you know quite_what you're asking for, but I'll give it to you anyway!" Actually, Anitra _did pretty much know what she was asking for. Having watched what happened when the dick-summoning spell was cast on the disguised Ursula, she was not at all surprised to see that, as Direza expended the last of the prepared scrolls, Manushya _didn't_sprout the same kind of moderately-sized human cock that _Anitra_always did when under the influence of the same enchantment.

This was not to say that Anitra knew exactly what she was letting herself in for. She'd never met - or fucked - a Rakshasa, but she_had_ encountered a few large felines before, and considering their overall tiger-like features, she thus wasn't particularly surprised by what she now saw emerge from that picture-perfect copy of her own groin. It was a bright cherry-red, with a fairly simple shape - a smooth shaft, widening into a somewhat thicker, conical cockhead. It was growing and hardening as she watched, driven by Manushya's horny eagerness - and along with this growth, the not-unexpected extra feature came into appearance.

As the thick head hardened, it also bristled - showing off several rows of bony, downwards-pointing barbs. The overall size wasn't noticeably greater than what one might have expected from a reasonably well-hung human, but those spiky protrusions promised a level of stimulation - or, alternately, agony - that few other creatures could have hoped to equal. In all honesty, it was both bigger and spikier than Anitra had really expected, though not so much - on either count - that it necessitated a change of plans. The advanced state of her pregnancy precluded her from the sort of massive pussy-penetrations she really preferred, with even the kind of mid-sized demon-cocks that Kylaees usually sported being unlikely to fit there in their entirety. But this sort of size? With her inhuman flexibility, she should still be able to handle that with ease. Still... she was glad that she had not, as she'd briefly contemplated, offered her peehole as another possible orifice.

As it was, Manushya fully took her at her word, and thus Anitra found herself gazing up at her own face - twisted with lustful glee - as the bright-red tiger-cock was forcibly inserted into the currently-tight quarters of her pussy. Whether she actually was_reasonably well rested after having spent the rest of the evening in bondage, or just _that eager for some kind of payback, Manushya certainly pounded her with aplomb, holding Anitra's legs up and aside as she smashed her with unrestrained force. Dozens of bright spots of agony blossomed within Anitra's groin as Manushya corkscrewed her hips on every pull-out, raking her cock-barbs across as much sensitive flesh as she could manage.

Indeed, amidst the rising tides of pain and pleasure, Anitra found herself pondering the fact that Manushya wasn't acting like an amateur in the art of cock-usage. Her technique, while perhaps not overly polished, was clearly tailored towards making the most of her natural assets. Perhaps this wasn't the first time she'd been under the influence of such a spell? Or maybe she just had some prior experience using a strap-on that sported similar features. Either way, Anitra wasn't complaining - she just leaned back and let the Rakshasi work. It had been far too long, she felt, since the last time she'd been able to just relax and let someone else take charge in bed. Someone who wasn't likely to go easy on her... but also wasn't equipped to actually hurt her, never mind her unborn child.

Still, before she could relax completely, there was one last order of business to take care of. Direza still hovered nearby, sporting an expression that mixed jealousy with the scandalized face of a priestess watching a divine monument being defaced. She needed to be... suitably distracted. From among the pillows, Anitra raised a hand and waved her back towards the rest of the guests - while simultaneously raising her voice loud enough to be heard across the room. "Oh, girls... if you wouldn't mind doing me a bit of a favor, do you suppose you could all gang up on Direza for me? Seeing as she's waited on you all throughout the evening, it only seems fitting that you all work together to make her cum 'till she either passes out or begs for mercy..."

Several heads looked up from between the thighs they'd previously been lodged between, they eyes falling on Direza with lazy calculation as she hesitantly approached them, obedient to Anitra's earlier gesture. A moment later, she was pulled into the center of the scrum, and the other women fell on her like a pack of leeches - eager mouths seeking every erogenous zone on her body, from the lips on down. As she disappeared among the naked, undulating bodies with a stifled moan, Anitra let her hand fall back to her side with a satisfied grin. Direza would be well taken care of, so now she could simply let her 'twin' have her way with her...

Not that Manushya had even slowed while Anitra made those last-minute requests - indeed, she was still accelerating, her breathing speeding up along with her thrusts. Free of any further distractions, however, Anitra could now let the resulting sensations flow freely through her. Her pussy had been starved for stimulation for months - with nothing deeper or more intense than Direza's soft, skillful tongue visiting it. Pleasurable in its own right, to be sure, but Anitra's tastes had always run to more potent_sensations - such as being stretched open and filled to capacity by a gigantic, rock-hard cock - and even the most artful cunnilingus was hardly a substitute for _that.

The tiger-cock, however, was another matter - indeed, she was now rather regretting not having thought of that possibility sooner. The pain inflicted by the barbed head substituted for the pain of stretching, creating a somewhat similar pain-and-pleasure cocktail - which was what triggered her masochistic side. Plus, with her pussy squeezed down by her currently-occupied womb, the otherwise rather small rod felt quite a bit bigger than otherwise. And for a final touch, she was looking up at a perfect copy of _herself_dishing it all out...

As the pleasure soaked into her mind, it wasn't hard to 'forget' that it was simply Manushya, wreathed in an illusion - the Rakshasa were, after all, masters of that art, particularly when it came to using them as disguises. They had limitations, sure, but within_those limitations, the illusions were perfect. The young woman currently pounding her pussy with a barb-lined cock didn't just _look_like her - she _sounded like her too, and her skin felt smooth and slippery with sweat. So it was easy to pretend that what she was looking at was actually, say, her long-lost half-sister? Knowing what she did about her mysteriously missing dad these days, odds were she had plenty of those, after all...

Anitra's thoughts were blotted out by white light as she came, groaning, back arching despite the load it carried. The delicious pain in her pussy carried on, however - scratching and clawing at the soft flesh for several more minutes before finally, with a groan that sounded just like her own resounding from above, it stopped. Then a familiar warmth spread through the tormented orifice, and she felt the sting of salty cum washing over the countless small wounds that had been inflicted inside her. Her bloated belly prevented her from seeing it, but she could well imagine the flow of pink that would be emerging from her pussy as her sister pulled out...

She was still enjoying the afterglow when she found herself tipped over on the side, with one leg lifted to perch on her twin's shoulder. As her pregnant belly sank heavily into the mound of pillows, she found herself with an even better view of proceedings while something hot and slimy poked at her sphincter. Her copy was sitting astride her other leg now, pinning it down as she began to thrust again, pushing her barb-lined cock into Anitra's tender asshole.

It went depressingly smoothly and easily, from Anitra's perspective. Sure, her body was preternaturally flexible and elastic, allowing her ass to snap back into shape and some semblance of its original tightness whenever Blake was done with it... but he had been using that hole virtually exclusively for the past couple of months, and even a DragonRider's body had limitations. Despite her attempts to clamp down now, squeezing down on the spiky intruder with her internal muscles, her anus remained relatively loose around the human-sized cock - which, combined with the layer of slime that coated her insides, meant that the barbs weren't biting as well as they had before.

Still, she could feel them here and there, and she found that she rather liked the position - it let her feel the impact of her twin's groin against her taint, and enabled a surprisingly deep penetration. Plus, there was the view, and with the level of physical stimulation so badly declined, she focused on that - enjoying the sight of her copy panting and grinning as she fucked her with glee (good thing that someone was enjoying, it least!), while in the back of her mind she wondered just why she found it so... hot. It was not, she knew, the narcissism that Manushya had implied at the outset.

The fact that she'd enjoyed the pussy-fucking so much more than this unsatisfying ass-reaming provided a clue. Melora enjoyed pain in all its many permutations, the sharper the better - but she_mostly just enjoyed the pain of _penetration, of being stretched to the bursting-point by something that was almost - but not quite - bigger than she could handle. There was little doubt that this pleasure had its roots in her first-ever sexual experience, her first meeting with Blake - her awakening as a DragonRider. And something else had happened that night, too...

She had done things that night that she was now ashamed of - turning on her own mother, ultimately leaving her broken, insane, and an implacable enemy that she eventually had no choice but to personally put down. But looking back, she found that having had sex with her mother wasn't one of the things that made her feel ashamed in retrospect. Just... aroused. The feeling of her mother's powerful kegel-muscles squeezing down on her wrist as she fisted her, the taste of her slowly-dewing juices on her tongue... the sensation of her mother's tongue caressing her pussy and sore, freshly-fucked asshole...

A shiver of pleasure that had nothing to do with Manushya's efforts went through her at the memory. Incest was covered by the oldest, most primal sexual taboo there was - and this, in and of itself, lent it a darkly seductive aura unrivaled by any of the other taboos she had gleefully broken throughout her career. In turn, this added a uniquely arousing edge to getting pounded by her 'twin sister', regardless of what she happened to be packing between her legs. And if the level of outright stimulation wasn't quite up to spec, well, there was nothing stopping her from reaching a hand around her distended belly and apply a bit extra...

Soon, she had a middle finger covered in oil and pussy-juice pumping into her urethra, the nail at the end scratching across the tight tube in a vague echo of the spines currently raking across her lower intestines. Even so, she didn't manage to beat her sister to the orgasmic plateau again - feeling a spray of hot cum flow into the depths of her ass as the thrusts paused and a teeth-clenched groan resounded from above. The glow of the Quickening spread slowly from the point beneath the base of her spine, but it was a vague one at best - there just wasn't all that much cum for her inhuman digestive-system to work with, certainly not enough to grant her any kind of exotic abilities. As a matter of fact, the slight stinging feeling in her pussy that she'd been enjoying as a kind of background-noise faded thanks to the surge rapidly healing the tears and scratches that the barbed cock had left there. So at best, it was a wash...

Still, things seemed like they'd soon be taking a delightfully nasty turn, judging by the unpleasant, narrow-eyed smirk on her copy's face as the spined cock was withdrawn from her ass once more, providing a final spike of pain and pleasure as it caught on her sphincter on the way out. Considering that Direza's panting moans could still vaguely be heard filtering through a pile of gyrating, naked, female bodies some distance away, it was certainly not any particular kind of_surprise_ when her 'sister', cock still deliciously hard, marched around the pile of pillows she was currently residing on and waved the pungent tool in her face. "Heh... seeing as your favorite servant is otherwise occupied, I guess you'll just have to do your own cleanup for once! And you did say that your mouth was available too..."

She had, and she'd meant it. With a grunt - and one finger still lodged in her peehole up to the knuckle - she rolled over on her belly once again, before using her remaining hand to lift herself slightly off the pillows and opened her mouth hungrily. She knew from her study of certain animal-related books from the Library of the Perverse that the actual purpose of the bristles that crowned the head of most large feline's cocks was to induce ovulation in the female by stimulating her inner labia... as well as deterring her from trying to leave before the male was done, which seemed like a nifty bit of build-in bondage-fun, in her opinion. More to the current point, while the bristles could not - in this case - do what they were designed to do, they could rake through the contents of her anus with aplomb. Traces of blood-tinged cum clung to the space beneath some of them, but most had simply scraped off the foul-smelling slime that clung to the inside of her rectum...

As she leaned in and closed her lips around the slimy thing, she momentarily flashed back to her first adventure to Mirage City - specifically, the camel. The whole point there, from the perspective of the perverted sultan who'd set it before her, was to pile on the maximum amount of sexual humiliation by tasking her with a particularly nasty clean-up task. She had not enjoyed the experience. Direza probably would have, but for Anitra, humiliation - like pain - needed to have the right _context_in order to bring her any pleasure.

This, fortunately, did. Gazing up, she could look past the flat belly she'd once had - and, hopefully, would soon have again - through the canyon of a heavy pair of tits (though not quite as heavy as the slightly milk-filled set she was currently packing) at the leering face of her twin sister. A face that made it clear that she'd be enjoying this particular blowjob on a level that had very little to do with the direct stimulation of her sensitive cockhead. And now, two handfuls of slender, powerful fingers were digging into Anitra's scalp, tangling in her raven-black hair, holding her head in place, making it clear that their owner would be setting the pace...

Eagerly surrendering to the domination and humiliation, Anitra let her tongue caress the cockhead that now resided within her mouth, feeling the sting of the spines as she carefully cleansed it of the bitter, foul-tasting slime that it had scraped off the inside of her rectum. Her hand was still moving, finger slowly pumping in and out of her peehole while the hilt of her hand rubbed against her clit. She added another finger while she continued the cleaning, stretching the now-relaxed orifice afresh and feeling the warm piss that had accumulated in her bladder since Direza had swung by to help empty it earlier in the evening leak up between the twin digits. The orgasm that she'd started working towards while her twin was busy pounding her ass remained in construction, building up towards the peak ever-so-slowly...

She unerringly maintained eye-contact, gazing up at the identical set of vertically-slitted azure gems above while hollowing her cheeks, sucking passionately on the stained tool as she dutifully cleaned it, watching as those pupils widened with pleasure. Sometimes, she caught a trace of something salty and metallic amidst the harsh bitterness on her tongue - traces of cum and her own, freshly-drawn blood. "You seem to be enjoying this a bit too much..." her own voice purred down at her, pitch-perfect. "It seems like you're even more of a slut than I'd thought."

Without more warning than that, the fingers wrapped around her skull tightened, and her head was forced forwards to collide face first with the similarly-advancing groin before her. The barbed cockhead, still with a fair bit of nasty slime stuck in its bristles, pushed its way clear down her throat, while her nose was mashed flat against the smooth, pale, hairless skin right above the bright-red shaft. A few more thrusts were poured down her throat, scratching at it with every pull-back, before her 'sister' clicked her tongue. "Hrm... roll over on your back again so I can throat-fuck you properly, slut!" she demanded, and the iron grip that had held her head in place was released.

Pulling her head back just far enough to clear the cockhead, she readily obeyed - returning to the legs-spread on-her-back pose she'd started the event in, her hair draping itself down over the pile of pillows to nearly touch the floor. Her fingers, as during the previous rotation, remained firmly ensconced in her urethra, still pumping slowly, maintaining the flow of the pleasurable stretching sensation. A moment later, her 'sister' knelt by her head and briefly rubbed her still ill-smelling cock against Anitra's face before pushing it down to vertical and guiding it past her spread lips once more.

It wasn't hard to tell why her double had insisted on this position - especially considering that she'd received a fair number of throat-fucks in the exact same configuration earlier in the evening. As her hips swung forwards her cock sank home right to the root, letting Anitra's lips kiss her smooth groin, while her nose nestled directly between her sweat-dewed balls. The ball-sack in question, she casually noted, was a bit tauter and closer to the body than the one she tended to sport while under the influence of that spell - presumably a Rakshasa-trait - but she quickly pushed that thought aside and simply relished the smell of lust-fueled ball-sweat while her throat was ruthlessly sodomized.

Certainly, her sister still didn't seem inclined to hold anything back. The strong fingers that had been grasping her scalp before were now wrapped tightly around her throat, presumably tightening it a bit more around the barb-crowned cock that was now tearing in and out of it at a rapid pace. Thanks to her DragonRider physiology, the slab of meat blocking her throat did little to impede Anitra's breathing - but that grip was another matter, constricting her windpipe enough to make her feel slightly light-headed. Of course, that wasn't a new experience either... she felt the same way when she deepthroated a cock large enough to squeeze her windpipe partially shut just by its sheer girth. In other words, her favorite kind of cock.

The two fingers she'd jammed up her peehole were moving faster now - producing a rhythmic, squelching kind of noise - as the combination of sensations pushed her closer and closer to another orgasm. Her 'sister', it seemed, wasn't far behind - pumping her hips full-force and panting steadily louder. Then, in a flash of blinding pleasure, it all came together - the hands wrapped around her throat, the slimy, barbed cock tearing at its insides, the stretching of her elastic urethra, her palm's repeated impacts against her clit, and the delicious humiliation of being so ruthlessly dominated by her 'twin sister'...

She let the orgasm roll through her body, arching her spine and making the fingers of her free hand dig into a pillow hard enough to strain the fabric. Its profile was novel, unfamiliar - a fresh combination of factors at its base. She relished it to the last drop, even as her throat and tongue continued to instinctively work on the cock that was being forced repeatedly into her mouth. Then, as it slowly faded and her eyes refocused, she regretfully pulled her fingers out of her peehole, letting it snap back into shape, and allowed her body relax for a moment.

Manushya - for the self-imposed 'twin sister' delusion was fading with the orgasmic pleasure, aided by the lack of a decent view in her current position - was thrusting more and more jerkily, clearly trying to reach her third orgasm within a rather short space of time. Anitra was perfectly willing to let her finish... but then, between the muscular thighs, she spotted something that her double, so focused on reaching her climax, had failed to notice. An idea immediately popped into her head, and had her mouth not been otherwise occupied, she would have smiled deviously.

A few more thrusts, and Manushya came - her hips finally still, even as her muscles strained with primal energy. In that moment, Anitra's hands rose, and snaked around those hips to firmly grip her buttocks - squeezing into the subtle layer of fatty tissue that overlaid the hard muscle beneath, pulling her forwards even harder, as if eager to keep her cock deep inside her throat as it deposited its load. That was the purpose Manushya assumed, amidst the torrents of orgasmic bliss, anyway...

But of course, that maneuver also served to pull the transformed tigress' ass-cheeks apart... providing both a signal and an implied invitation for the figure who currently loomed behind her kneeling form. Equine hooves and stone floors were a poor combination for the stealthy approach, and getting down on your knees behind someone without being noticed was pretty hard regardless, especially_if you happened to be heavily pregnant... but if you had a bit of practice - and your mark was thoroughly and orgasmically distracted - it _was possible, as Melora now demonstrated.

Enough said, Manushya didn't realize what was happening before Melora's cockhead, lubricated by the juices of the last girl who'd benefited from it before she escaped from the general scrum, pushed through her sphincter. It wasn't the first, second, or even third time that exact cockhead had made its way past that exact sphincter - current illusional overlay notwithstanding - just that evening, however, so despite the lack of warning, it handled the intrusion with aplomb. This unexpected stimulation provided a nice bit of extra punch to the last couple of seconds of her orgasm... only for it to fade away, letting her recognize the by now familiar sensation of a thick, iron-banded horsecock making its way forcibly up her colon.

Instinctively, she relinquished her grip on Anitra's throat and reached behind her, trying to find the source of this proverbial backstab - only for her wrists to be swiftly intercepted by a pair of large, powerful hands, and wrenched further back yet. As Anitra shimmied backwards a few inches, slipping her head off the impaling cock that was now starting to soften after its lengthy round of exercise, she found herself helpless once more - bent backwards around Melora's pregnant belly, on her knees, ass fully impaled.

Relinquishing her grip on Manushya's ass, Anitra rolled over on her side and glanced up at her copy while wiping a string of drool from her face. "Well, that was a nice bit of fun..." she declared in a chipper voice, propping her head up with one arm. "Still, with a little help from Melora here, it behooves me to remind you exactly_where you stand. Or, as it were, _kneel. We wouldn't want any... misunderstanding, after all, do we?" As she spoke, Manushya - showing a decent ability to read a room - dropped the illusion that had given her Anitra's appearance, returning to her natural, furry, tiger-striped self. Anitra didn't mind - she'd had her fun, and arousing though the illusion had been, it was just an illusion when all was said and done.

Manushya didn't reply to Anitra's question - which had, of course, been rhetorical anyway - but her face was conflicted. Blithely, Anitra continued her little speech, extemporizing as she went. "I let you have your way with me... let, mind, because I thought it'd be fun, and it was! But what you didn't seem to grasp is that, even if I'm rolling over on command and cleaning my own ass-slime off your cock, that doesn't mean I'm not still in charge. Whether you're tied up and blindfolded while getting reamed by my party-guests, or pounding my ass with a spiky tiger-dick and then making me clean it, you are and remain my pet. My cute little kitten, who is oh-so-adorable even when she scratches me... heh."

As she spoke, Anitra reached out with her free hand. Manushya's dick had gone limp, and now jumped in a rubbery fashion with every slow thrust Melora poured into her ass - until, that was, Anitra nudged it aside in order to take a firm grip on the smooth ballsack that peeked out of the creamy fur beneath it. Her inhumanly-strong fingers closed delicately around the two sensitive orbs - and then steadily ratcheted up the force until Manushya's eyes bugged out, seemingly ready to jump out of her skull, while her jaw opened in a pained gasp.

"Now, listen to me, kitten..." Anitra continued, lowering her voice to a throaty purr, and occasionally giving the balls in her hand an extra squeeze in order to emphasize a particular word. "...after tonight, you'll be going back to your hut, and back to doing whatever you like to do. Judging by the performance you just put on, though, I can guess that this may involve you standing tall with a whip in your hand. And by all means, indulge yourself! But never forget who is_really_ in charge. If I call, you will come - and you will_kneel_, and lower your head, and spread your legs... and whatever happens after that, you will love it. You will cum, and moan, and writhe on the floor as the pleasure consumes your mind, because you won't. Have. Any. Choice..."

She'd increased the pressure another bit for each of those last words, and at the end she'd felt something give. Even when she released her grip and removed her hand, Manushya's face remained twisted in a wide-eyed, soundless scream. Maybe she'd overdone it a bit, on reflection. She'd watched - and occasionally helped - Blake torture Melora's magically-summoned testicles in the past, but apparently, those equine nuts were a tad tougher to crack than the feline version. But, hey, it couldn't really be called 'permanent' damage when the entire tackle was going to disappear as soon as the spell wore off, right? Which, granted, would still take a bit more than an hour, considering how recently it had been applied.

Still, as she watched, the agonized expression on Manushya's face seemed to flicker and ripple. The Rakshasi took several deep, shuddering breaths, sending tremors through her entire body even as Melora continued to fuck her with slow, deliberate strokes. Her eyes seemed to go slightly out of focus, and finally her face arrived at a slightly twisted version of one Anitra knew quite well - a look of dark exultation found only in the depths of depravity. She'd seen it on Direza when she writhed in embarrassment amidst the worst of the humiliations Anitra had piled on her, and on Melora when she hung near-unconscious after being tortured for days at Blake's hands. Perhaps she, herself, had worn it at times - it would not surprise her. "Yes, Mistress..." Manushya finally replied, her voice thin and rough, and Anitra nodded in satisfaction.

With a few grunts and grimaces, Anitra leveraged herself out of the pile of slippery, oil-stained pillows and got to her feet so that she could look down on Manushya in a more literal fashion. "That's the spirit, kitten... now, when Melora releases your arms, you're going to bend over and pull your ass-cheeks apart so that she can fuck you that bit more deeply. And you'll stay that way until she finally gets bored with you... well, I'm assuming she'll run out of energy eventually! At that point, you will - of course - carefully clean her cock before seeking your own rest. Understood?"

The Rakshasi nodded jerkily, and as Anitra stepped away, words were turned to action. With her face and upper body resting on the pile of pillows - liberally coated in lubricating oil, sweat and feminine juices - she pulled her buttocks forcefully apart, giving Melora the clearance she needed in order to push the last of her three spiked cockrings through her sphincter on every thrust. The tremors that continued to rhythmically run through her body, though, probably had less to do with this deep, thick, powerful intrusion, and more to do with what was dangling limply beneath it.

Throwing a wistful glance towards her chair - which she slept in more often than not these days, since it seemed to support her ungainly weight better than any bed - Anitra nonetheless waddled over to the pile of naked, female bodies that represented the rest of her party-guests. It was fairly clear that the party had pretty much ended, though - everyone had worked themselves into exhaustion, and several were now using various convenient asses and breasts as pillows as they rested. Somewhere near the middle, Direza lay snoring - having apparently opted for the 'pass out' option. Not that this had put an end to thing - between her legs, Gisela Goodsong was still working, her tongue digging energetically into the dark elf's sweet slit, and the tremors of sleeping mini-orgasms frequently ran through Direza's nude, sweat-coated body.

Gisela was clearly the only one there who still had that kind of energy left, though, and several seemed to be fast heading in the same direction as Direza - even Kylaees seemed rather tuckered out, presumably feeding on the sense of sleepy contentment that was radiating off the rest of them. So, it was time to act like a proper hostess once more! Raising her voice enough to make the ones who were nodding off blink their eyes and raise their heads a bit, Anitra called out to them. "All right, girls, seems like the party's over! You don't have to go home, but you can't sleep there - you'll catch a cold or worse!"

With her thumb, she pointed towards the nest that took up a fair portion of the room. "If you don't have the energy to wander on home, you should climb up there and take a nap - of course, you're also welcome to just stay the night altogether! Blake won't be back 'till tomorrow, so you don't need to worry about stealing his bed. Oh, and for those of you who've found yourself one dress poorer than when you arrived, I've got some one-size-fits-all cloaks you can borrow for the trip home..." Unsurprisingly, nobody seemed inclined to just head out right away, and it was only with groaning reluctance that they even staggered to their feet. Once they'd taken a closer look at the nest, though, they moved towards it with sleepy enthusiasm, with Gisela cajoling Kylaees into carrying the still-unconscious Direza over her shoulder.

The poorly informed - a group to which Anitra had never belonged even_before_ encountering Blake, thanks to her mother's often long-winded 'war-stories' - often assumed that dragons preferred to sleep on a bed of gold and gems... but the truth was that even they_didn't find much joy in lying atop a pile of hard, cold, pointy bits of metal and stone. They enjoyed _owning it, oh yes, but like virtually every other living thing, they preferred to sleep on something soft. What, exactly, that entailed depended a lot on where a given dragon lived and how big it was - with many having to make do with straw, grass, moss, leaves and the like simply because they couldn't gather enough of anything else for a suitably large nest.

Needless to say, between Blake's paragon status within the Utopia and his relatively small size, his nest was nothing short of luxurious, being composed of several layers of stain-proof, magically-preserved furs, taken from both local critters and trade-caravans. Indeed, the traders who guested the Utopia had learned by now that while it wasn't hugely valued, there was always a decent market for 'soft things' there, with plenty of dragons being interested in an odd spot of nest-improvement. Regardless, Anitra had spent quiet a bit of time cuddled up to Blake - not to mention doing various other things with him - in that nest, and had found it eminently comfortable... so it was hardly surprising that it seemed an attractive proposition to the handful of yawning women who now padded towards it.

As they passed her, however, Anitra intercepted Ursula with a touch on the shoulder and lowered her voice to a near whisper. "I hope_you'll_ stay the night..." she said with a lopsided smile. "There's something I'd like to discuss with my favorite sea-witch on the morrow. Something... potion-related." Ursula quirked an eyebrow as she paused in her stride, stifling a yawn. "So now I'm your favorite sea-witch, eh?" She asked, somewhat playfully but with a touch of an edge underneath. Anitra just chuckled. "Oh, you have been since I met you, darling... I just love people who occasionally give me an excuse to_punish_ them." The naughty smile that accompanied that statement sold it completely, and Ursula chortled - a voluminous sound that served as a nice reminder that there was a rather more heavily-built octopoid hiding under the skin of the plain brunette before her - and grinned in reply. "Well, you better at least arrange for some breakfast, my dear..." the sea-witch chuckled.

Shortly afterwards, Anitra found herself seated in her comfortable, throne-like chair once more, covering her sweaty skin with a rug and trying to relax. The vague, half-assed Quickening she'd earned from Manushya's two cum-loads had given her a fresh charge of energy, and despite her tired limbs, her mind was still whirling - chewing over the memories of the evening, and contemplating the future plans she'd be setting in motion in the morning, assuming Ursula proved capable of supplying what was necessary. Sleep eluded her, even as various snores began to filter through to her from the nest...

Thus, she was still awake - if not terribly alert - when the final, still-active component of the 'party' ended an hour later. She watched Manushya stumble bow-legged towards the nest with a faint smile, and looked up sleepily when Melora began cleaning up after the party a moment later. She'd finally removed the Ring of Priap, and now held the three iron rings - their teeth encrusted with large amounts of blood - in her hands while collecting various other toys that had been left behind in the middle of the floor when the orgy broke up, and then carried all of them towards the sink that stood near the great, circular hot-tub in one corner of the room. Just like a warrior would never put his sword away without cleaning it first, Melora clearly had no intention of seeking her bed before the relevant sex-toys had been duly cleaned.

"Hey... you enjoy the evening?" Anitra asked, slurring slightly, when Melora approached her after finishing her chores, clearly intending to check if she needed anything - something that would normally have been part of the currently unconscious Direza's nightly duties. The mare nodded, a soft smile on her equine face, as she meticulously pulled the blanket into a more covering position, tucking it into the corners of the chair. "I don't know where you find your energy... heck, you're more pregnant than me and I can hardly move!" She continued, glancing at Melora's bulbous belly - which, indeed, was larger than her own, despite her being slightly further away from birth according to the healers. Equus children were generally born rather large and well-developed, apparently.

"I mean... did you really just spend an hour ass-fucking Manushya? After everything else you've been doing tonight?" Anitra asked, spurred somewhat by Melora's continued silence. "Pretty much..." Melora finally answered with a shrug. "It's not like I'm limited by normal, mortal virility while using the ring, after all. Besides, I rather enjoyed it." Anitra chuckled, and smiled up at the young mare that she'd grown so surprisingly fond of, considering that she was her 'husband's primary mistress. " 'm glad to hear it..." she slurred "I was worried things might be a bit awkward between you and Manushya, honestly, what with that whole... her-eating-your-tits thing and all. Maybe you liked getting a bit of revenge, hmm?"

Melora raised an eyebrow, smiled, and gently shook her head. "I do not resent her for that at all..." she corrected. "If anything, I'm grateful. That night... agonizing though it was... it was the most intense experience I ever had. To give of my body so...literally - I had never imagined!" Her eyes seemed dreamy and distant for a moment - apparently, with a bit of distance, the pain of having her tits severed had faded, while the memory of Blake's gratitude had remained clear. "I can't say I enjoy knowing that she ate my flesh like that..." the mare continued, suddenly frowning "...but at least my Lord was the one who did the cutting. I'll treasure that memory always..."

Despite the somewhat bloody subject-matter, Melora's voice was smooth and soothing, and with that for a lullaby, Anitra shortly drifted off to sleep - and a most eventful evening finally came to an end.

Roughly a week after the party, a scroll arrived for Anitra from the group of sages and enchanters who'd been trying to figure out how to safely remove her nipple-rings. The results held within were thought-provoking, if not terribly encouraging. "Well, they're confident that the rings CAN be opened, but they've also pretty much given up on figuring out how without some more information..." Anitra read aloud from her chair, while Blake craned his long, slender neck in an attempt to read over her shoulder. "What's interesting is that they've positively identified the enchantments as what they call 'Ancient Magic', which is why they had to throw in the towel."

"Ancient Magic..." Blake pondered, withdrawing his head in order to rub his chin with one talon. "I've heard about this. Magic from some lost, mythical era that nobody knows how to USE anymore. Adventurers and treasure-chasing dragons sometimes unearth millenia-old artifacts enchanted with it, but nobody in this era has ever been able to figure out how they were enchanted, nor who made them. Except... we know exactly who made your rings, don't we?" Anitra opened her mouth to reply, then paused and shrugged. "Do we, actually? I mean... I got them from Drewyn the Smith, but it's not like we saw him make the rings. For all we know, he's got a chestful of them stashed somewhere in the back of his smithy... though, of course, that just raises _more_questions."

Sighing, Blake shrugged his shoulders and unfurled his wings, batting them a couple of times as if to work out the kinks and sending powerful gusts of wind through the room at the same time - nearly tearing the scroll from Anitra's hands. "Well, whatever the question is, it seems like Drewyn the Smith is the only one likely to have the actual answers. I... don't suppose you'd agree to stay here while I fly off to ask him?" His tone made it clear that he didn't have high hopes, and Anitra's raised eyebrows and overall sarcastic expression was answer enough. Rolling his eyes, he folded his wings once more. "Thought as much. Guess we're going to need that palanquin again..."

Seeing as said palanquin was available, having been safely stashed away after the beach-trip, preparing for this particular journey didn't take terribly long. Indeed, the main issue was figuring out what to do with Melora and Direza while they were off - they both agreed that bringing them would be a bad idea. Drewyn the Smith clearly wasn't a 'people-person', as illustrated by the fact that his forge stood on an isolated mountaintop accessible only to dragons, and mentioned only in the odd myth and legend surrounding Black Dragons and DragonRiders. That was also pretty much the full list of individuals he was known to welcome - so turning up with two servants in tow was as like as not to start the conversation off on the wrong foot, assuming he didn't just have some kind of magical defenses in place that made his mountaintop hermitage inaccessible if anyone except a dragon-and-rider combo approached.

Fortunately, Anitra had been pondering something new ever since observing Direza at the party... and once she discussed it with Blake, he quickly realized that it also offered a fine niche that Melora could fit into. "If I pose it as a challenge, Cerulea should be able to gather what's needed in fairly short order? She'll be expecting a_reward_, of course, but... " He suggested, somewhat hesitantly. Apparently, he'd noticed how her advancing pregnancy had made it harder for Anitra to shrug off his frequent dalliances with the female dragons of the Utopia. Still, in this case... forcing a smile, Anitra nodded. "That sounds like the fastest and most efficient way to go about it. Now I just need to check if Ursula has finished the potion we talked about... and fortunately, I've got a personal servant who is always ready to run those kinds of errands!"

By the next day, preparations were complete. Direza's expression had been somewhere between nervous, scared and aroused when she returned from her errand at the bottom of the lake, suggesting that Ursula - not unexpectedly - hadn't been able to resist the temptation to drop a few 'hints', but when Anitra neglected to tell her what the potion she had just fetched was for, the submissive drow hadn't asked. Admirable self-control there, in Anitra's opinion. With the palanquin ready to be strapped to Blake's back and a suitable amount of supplies gathered, all that was left was for them to brief their servants.

"Now, I know you wanted to come with us... but I also know that you understand why you can't this time..." Anitra intoned, as Blake loomed behind her. Both of them nodded a bit sadly - but there was a spark of anticipation in their eyes, too. They knew well that they weren't likely to be left bored while their master and mistress was away. "Of course, we have put some thought into... suitable assignments for you, as always..." Blake rumbled, his neck twisting as he lowered his head to peer more closely at Melora, and specifically her pregnant belly. A cloud of hot air from his nostrils caressed it as he looked closer yet, making her shiver with poorly-hidden delight at his attention.

"Now, Melora - between your... condition, and the reward I owe you for your impressive performance at the recent party, I believe you'll be on light duty. Anitra has a small chore that you'll need to perform on a daily basis, but it shouldn't take much time, so by all means spend the rest as you please! Get some rest in, perhaps visit your friend Gisela - I'm certain she'll be pleased to see you." The mare's face suggested that she wasn't altogether happy with this, though the way her eyes narrowed and panned to Anitra at the mention of this unexplained 'chore' also suggested that she held some doubt that she'd really get off that easily. Especially considering the torturous plights he'd left her in on previous occasions!

"Mind, since I'll be away, there'll be no-one around to milk you..." Blake then continued, a playful smile on his lips, and her eyes immediately refocused on him with eager expectation. "Still, not to worry. We shan't be gone more than a week or so, and the healers have assured me that such a duration isn't likely to cause any long-term issues." This was true, of course - but normally, she was 'milked' every three days, and her impressive 'production' ensured that she was in significant discomfort by the third day. A full week without milking would allow the pressure to build up to a truly painful degree, especially since he had implicitly made it clear that his standing orders not to relieve the pressure by hand would remain in effect.

Still a very light 'sentence', comparatively, but it would certainly ensure that she'd look forwards to his return with ever-growing longing. As the two of them exchanged naughty smiles, meanwhile, Anitra fixed Direza with a look that made her squirm where she stood. "Now, Direza..." she started "In the past, I've set you a few challenges while I was away. More often than not, you've failed at them. Perhaps some of that is my fault, for setting... unrealistic goals for you..." she quickly held up a hand to forestall the inevitable protestations to the contrary that Direza was about to interject, and continued with a spreading grin on her face. "So I thought long and hard about what to task you with _this_time."

"So worry not, my pet! This time, there will be no chance of failure. All you will need to do is simply... endure, until I return." Before Anitra could get any further than that, however, a knock on the door interrupted it. It was a sharp sound, and high up - clearly not made by a human, or anything of similar size. Chuckling, Blake lifted his head and called out "Enter!" Through the opening door emerged a female blue with fine features, currently trying to keep her balance while handling a large barrel with her foreclaws. "Ah, Cerulea... I trust you come bearing tidings of success?"

Cerulea deposited the barrel inside the door with a sound that clearly suggested it wasn't empty, and nodded eagerly. "Yes! I've worked at it all day, and most of the night, but I was able to gather enough! Umm... does this mean that you're bringing the Challenge-Games back, Sir Blake?" Her voice was eager and her eyes were bright as she asked that question, but her wings drooped a bit when Blake shook his head with a regretful expression. "Alas, fun though those games were, I find that I don't have the time for them anymore - between the Council and the private project I'm working on with Anitra, there just isn't enough hours in the day. But I may still have the occasional challenge for my favorite prize-winner, hmm?"

This declaration rapidly cheered Cerulea up, and the cheering was completed as Blake proceeded out the door with her, promising to deliver her 'reward' right away. Back when they'd first arrived at the Utopia, with little else to do but indulge in perversion and decadence, Blake had periodically hosted 'games' where he put the various female dragons who so dearly wanted to sample his sexual skills to the test, with Anitra often being involved in one fashion or another. The games themselves had been just as entertaining to him as handing out the 'reward' afterwards, and watching the female dragons he'd once assumed would never see him as anything other than a misshapen monster willingly humiliate themselves just for a chance to taste his cock had helped immensely at adjusting his mind to the new reality the Utopia offered.

Cerulea - the first dragon with whom he'd flown a mating-flight - had won more games than any other dragon, and indeed drawn some degree of ire from all the young dragonettes who'd yet to fly with him even once, and she'd been quite sad when Blake was gradually drawn into both the governance of the Utopia and Anitra's search for answers, and resultantly lost interest in those frivolous diversions. In truth, he wasn't that busy - he could've made time for those games if he really wanted to - but there wasn't much reason anymore. After all, he had already acquired a suitable circle of female dragons who were always eager to share their nest - or, better yet, a flight - with him, Cerulea foremost among them.

Certainly, she'd come through for him in this case, and as Direza backed away from the newly-arrived barrel - more on instinct than anything else, from what Anitra could figure - she found herself swiftly enfolded in her mistress' strong arms. "Fear not, my pet..." Anitra whispered into the drow's pointy ears. "Like I said, there will be no chance of failure this time. Now, let's get you ready - first of all, it's time you sampled that potion you fetched for me yesterday..."

Target's in sight! And everything looks normal! Anitra eagerly stuck her head out the window of the palanquin as she heard Blake's mental voice, and felt a surge of nostalgia as she gazed at the desolate mountaintop before her. It wasn't hard to recognize, certainly - the regular, conical contours of a - mostly - extinct volcano, surrounded by a jungle that rivaled the Utopia's. 'The Green Hell', some called it - whether derived from the name of Mt. Hellfire or the other way around, Anitra wasn't sure.

When she'd first seen that mountain, she'd been a DragonRider for less than 24 hours. She still barely had any idea what a DragonRider was. It had only been a short handful of years since then, but it felt like a lifetime... still, the volcano didn't seem like it'd care about the passage of either space of time. By all accounts, Drewyn the Smith had been hiding out there for millennia, and there was nothing to indicate that anything had changed. Good thing too - Blake had made it perfectly clear to her, along the way, that if they saw any indication that danger and adventure waited at their destination, rather than just a quick chat, he'd turn around on a flat copper and fly her right back again. She was in no shape to take_any_ kind of risk, according to him - which, she reluctantly had to admit, was probably fair considering that she was likely to give birth within the next couple of weeks. Still, it had never been a particularly likely scenario...

The Green Hell was an inhospitable region to begin with - the jungle was said to be rife with hungry beasts, outright monsters, and hostile tribes to boot. Those rare, daring explorers and adventurers who entered it were usually in search of some rare flower, root, or other piece of its rich fauna, for use in alchemy or magecraft - and had little interest in the mountain of basalt and ash that rose majestically from its center. Which, of course, made it a perfect hermitage for someone who only welcomed visits from guests with wings...

Anitra still had no idea how Blake was able to spot the hidden entrance to Drewyn's cave - something about a pattern of boulders along the crater's rim, supposedly, but her eyes weren't sharp enough to pick out the requisite detail. Still, he landed on the appropriate outcropping just as surely as he had the first time they visited, and shifted the hefty chunk of basalt that covered most of the entrance with just as much ease. Last time, though, Anitra - still drunk on the sheer power of her new, part-dragon body - had eagerly leaped from his neck as soon as she landed. This time, she climbed down slowly and awkwardly, with a fair bit of help from him. Indeed, had the tunnel before them been big enough for the palanquin, she likely would've ridden him all the way inside - but it wasn't, leaving him with little choice but to remove the unwieldy thing and tuck in his wings tightly.

Despite the way the straps bit into her swollen feet, Anitra was glad that she'd brought the sandals from her armor - well, actually, she'd brought all of it, just in case Drewyn raised any questions about whether she'd taken care of the armor he'd forged for her, but she wasn't wearing most of it. The wrist-guards and leg-guards still fit, more or less, but there wasn't much point in wearing just that, so she'd settled for a light robe and the sandals - and considering how much heat the ashen ground beneath her was radiating, that had had been a good move. Between the baking sun, the moist warmth rising from the jungle below and the heat radiating out from the old volcano's still-fiery heart, it was hot enough that she rather wished she could've worn her breastplate still, just to benefit from the heat-resistant effects of the firestone set into the center of it.

Removing the boulder that had covered the entrance to Drewyn's smithy certainly hadn't lowered the temperature, either - the tunnel didn't go far, and the back of the cave was, as before, a lavafall, radiating a dull and wearying heat. This time, though, Drewyn wasn't standing in the middle of the room to welcome them in his own grumpy way - but rather, was emerging grumblingly from his cot, halfway reaching for the nearby weapons-rack only to pause as he spotted Blake's gleaming black scales. "Typical. Years without customers, an' when one finally arrives, it's during me afternoon nap..." he could be heard muttering as he reached for the leather apron that hung from a nearby hook set into the basalt wall.

Anitra had to stifle a laugh. Last time she'd shown up, she'd been buck-naked - and the dwarf's blunt manners had actually managed to briefly make her feel embarrassed about this. Now, she'd_caught _him with his literal breeches down - considering the intense heat in the little chamber, he clearly slept without any kind of blanket, or clothes for that matter, and while his nearly floor-length beard of vibrant red kept the key part of his dignity intact even so, she could see enough to tell that he was _tremendously_hairy.

Still,he didn't show anything other than grouchy, freshly-awakened annoyance as he pulled on his breeches and his apron - which was, come to think of it, all he'd worn last time, too. Presumably, shirts weren't much needed in this environment. He looked as ill-tempered, muscular and thoroughly unimpressed by the sudden intrusion of a black dragon into his living-room as ever, too, and Anitra couldn't help but smile. There was a comfort in knowing that something - and some_one -_ had stood so utterly unchanged by all that had transpired since she received her armor and sword here. Though, with any luck, she might soon change that too... a melancholic thought, on reflection.

"Hey, wait a minute... ye look familiar..." Drewyn commented as he took up his - apparently customary - pose in the midst of the room, arms crossed across his chest as the lavaflow backlit him dramatically. With a lopsided smile, Anitra waddled up closer and reached over her shoulder. "So you do remember me - kind of? Well, maybe this'll jog your memory..." Drewyn's eyes widened and brightened as she pulled BlackFire from its sheath on her back, holding the blade out for him to inspect. His eyes widened perceptibly as he recognized his masterpiece, and as he reached out to run a stubby finger over the flat of the blade, she found herself inspecting it more closely herself than she had in years.

It truly was an incredible weapon - the kind that announces its power to anyone who beheld it. The hilt of gleaming mithril, shaped like a stylized dragon, with the crimson carbuncle as a pommel-stone - indeed, only a cretin could mistake a jewel of such fiery brilliance for a mere ruby! And the blade, so black that it seemed to draw in the light around it - not the jet-black of Blake's scales or, by extension, her armor, but a sooty black that she knew came from the carbonized dragon-blood that clung to the metal. Only near the hilt, where the blade's name had been engraved in this thin layer, did the bright steel underneath peek through. It had served her well throughout her adventures, and been the last thing many a foe saw... including her own mother. With any luck, it would continue to serve her just as well for many years still to come.

Drawing a shuddering breath, Drewyn withdrew his fingers and squared his jaw, drawing himself up to his full height - what there was of it. "Aye, I recognize that blade, a'right. Sorry for the lackin' welcome, but I hadn't expected to see the two of ye again, an' certainly not so soon! An' you have to admit, yer in a slightly diff'rent shape from last I saw ye!" He chuckled at this, eyeing her belly. "Congratulations, incidentally, an' best wishes for yer child!" Grinning, she thanked him for his well-wishes - his accent, she noted, was as charmingly unique as she remembered. She'd never met anyone who spoke in such an odd brogue, and found herself pondering whether it was a relic of his ancient origins or just a personal affection.

"So... to what do I owe tha pleasure?" He continued, somewhat guardedly as he took a step back so that he could keep both of them in view at the same time. "Any trouble with the gear I forged for ye?" Anitra grimaced and rubbed her neck. "Well, that's an interesting question... the armor's saved my life dozens of times, and the sword is every bit as incredible as you promised. So I suppose the answer rather depends on whether you forged these rings yourself..." she opened her robes as she talked, letting her chest out into the hot, volcanic air - considering that she'd eagerly mated with Blake right in front of the - presumably rather lonesome - dwarf during their first meeting, there wasn't much point in trying to play coy. He'd seen it all before - although, her breasts were a touch bigger than back then, and traces of milk were gathering in the various crevices of the intricately-carved rings.

Moving closer again, Drewyn rose to his tippy-toes in order to see over her bulbous belly and eye the rings in question, stroking his beard with wrinkles of worry creasing his forehead. "Well, I crafted_tha rings, though they were sculpted rather than forged... an' not for ye, specifically. I always keep a few sets around so they're on hand the next time I get visitors. Never had any complaints afore, but then again, I don't see a lot of repeat customers at tha best o' times, so who can say... what's troubling ye aboot them?" Raising an eyebrow, Anitra shrugged. "Oh, they've worked well enough - though the limited range can be a bit of a bother at times, and it seems like quite a few kinds of magical shielding will block them altogether. The _problem, though, is how I can take them off. Handy though they are, I'd rather like to let my son nurse without impediment..."

Drewyn's eyes widened, and he rocked back on his heels. "What? Ain't the release-word workin'?" Then, as Anitra's eyebrows rose higher, an expression of realization spread across his heat-reddened face, and he quickly hid it with one work-scarred hand as he groaned in embarrassment. "I never told ye the words, did I?" he asked from somewhere beyond the hand. "I got so caught up in making tha sword that I fergat all aboot it..." Anitra had to laugh. She'd had those rings permanently embedded in her flesh for years, with no way to remove them save by cutting open her nipples, and had now flown halfway across the continent in order to resolve the situation... all because the dwarf who put them there had gotten so excited about the prospect of finally crafting his long dreamed-of masterpiece sword that he'd forgotten to explain the ring's features properly.

Needless to say, Drewyn was quite apologetic about the inconvenience, and quickly provided her with a single, arcane word that - if spoken by her lips - would cause the rings to open for easy removal. The word was swiftly tested and found to work just fine - the tiny, carefully-sculpted maws of the serpentine dragons that her rings resembled sprang open, releasing previously unseen tails. Even _these_had delicately-sculpted scales, despite being completely invisible when the rings were on - displaying an admirable dedication to craftsmanship. Drewyn blushed slightly when she gave voice to this sentiment, and tried to shrug it off. "Well, I've got plenty o' time between customers comin' by, and th' rings are aboot all I can craft inbetween - seeing as they don't need to be sized for th' individual, ye know! So I figure I might as well be thorough about it. Still..."

A look came over his face that she'd seen on quite a few craftsmen back in the Utopia, and he regarded the now-released rings thoughtfully. "Mebbe I was focusin' on th' wrong thing. Ye said that they get blocked by magic shields and suchlike a lot, huh?" This, Anitra had to confirm. From the palling that hung over the Valley of Wonder to the walls of Mirage City, never mind the vast antimagic field that a pair of golden dragons had once trapped Blake in, there had been plenty of incidents where their telepathic communication had been cut off - to their mutual anxiety.

Stroking his beard, Drewyn walked over to the jeweler's bench that made up part of his comprehensive, if somewhat compact, smithy and pulled an identical set of rings out of a drawer, holding them up to inspect them under a magnifying-glass that shone with sold [solid?], yet potent magics to the eyes of Anitra and Blake. "Hrm... nothin' to be done about anti-magic fields, tha's just the way things are... but the rest..." he mumbled, clearly inspecting the enchantments woven into the rings, rather than the sculpted design. Less clear was the question of whether he was actually addressing his visitors, or just talking to himself. Considering his isolation, the later seemed an entirely likely habit for him to have developed. "I've been usin' the same design since tha ol' days, but they were made for tha battlefield, nae adventuring. Mebbe 's aboot time I came up with a_new_ design, better suited fer the DragonRiders of this age."

Blake and Anitra exchanged a pondering gaze, not even needing their telepathic communications on this occasion, as a flicker of melancholy flashed across the dwarf's face. Clearly, he didn't like_the idea of switching up the old formula, but he had too much craftsman's pride not to consider it under the circumstances. More importantly, his idle words were one more piece in an ever-expanding and quite perplexing puzzle. They now knew that Drewyn was capable of wielding so-called 'Ancient' magic, at least in the form of enchantments - something that no other known mage or wizard was capable of. And they'd known for a while, now, that he crafted gear that significantly resembled - albeit with a rather more daring cut - that which had been worn by the _original DragonRiders, as seen in Blake's dream of those ancient days. Combined with the knowledge that Drewyn had survived through the millennia thanks to the dragonblood elixir he brewed from his customer's 'payment', and it seemed increasingly obvious that he was a living relic from the forgotten age of mankind's conquest.

Except... he was a dwarf. Why did he know how to craft the gear worn by the most exalted chosen of mankind's long-forgotten creator-god? Why did he seem to harbor such strong, nostalgic attachments to a bygone era where humanity had seemingly sought to reduce all non-humans to slaves - assuming they were allowed to survive at all. Well... there was one obvious way to find out. "Listen, Drewyn..." Anitra said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder and drawing his attention back from the rings he'd been inspecting with such narrow focus. "If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a question or two. You see... since we parted ways, me and Blake have taken up a bit of a hobby, seeking out the hidden secrets of our origins. The truth of what it means to be a black dragon or a DragonRider. I think you know what I'm talking about. We've learned a fair bit already... but I suspect you know more yet."

Drewyn seemed recalcitrant at first, but once Anitra had expounded about some of their discoveries so far, his eyes came alive. "Well, I'll be... I honestly never thought I'd be talkin' to another soul about those days." Shaking his head, he once again had a mournful look. Then he shrugged his massive shoulders, and sank down on a stool next to a large grinding-wheel while gesturing towards his bed. "Feel free to 'ave a seat on me cot - it seems we've got a few things ta talk aboot, an' I would nae keep a pregnant woman on her feet through it!"

Gratefully, Anitra accepted the invitation, while Blake rolled up catlike on the floor nearby, head lifted with living interest. Originally, it had been Anitra who drove their investigation, while Blake mostly just went along with it out of a combination of boredom and the desire to see her happy - but by now, he was just as invested in learning the truth as she was, not least because the reality behind their origins seemed so likely to have very real consequences in the present and future. With rapt attention - and the occasional inquisitive interjection - they thus listened to Drewyn's story.

He had, indeed, once been a smith in the service of the human empire, thousands of years ago. Or rather, his master had been such a smith, as well as an enchanter and alchemist of unparalleled skill - Drewyn had simply been his apprentice, his student, and his devoted follower. When his master had chosen to take his skills to the humans, Drewyn had followed without question. "We were nae slaves!" He hurriedly assured his audience. "We came thar of our own will and choice, and they respected that! They respected our skills! Our people called us traitors, collaborators, outcasts, spat at our names... but tha humans, they respected us and prized our work highly!"

As for why Drewyn's master had chosen to take such a radical step - defecting to the enemy during a war that had consumed the entire world - the dwarf could not truly say. "Tha fools back home, they thought he had no confidence in the hardiness of tha dwarves - that he did nae think we could win. That he sought ta make a better deal fer himself than he could've if he stood with the conquered. Tha kinder souls thought that he might be tryin' ta show mankind how useful tha dwarves could be, ta help ensure us better conditions when we fell and were enslaved. But I dinae think it was anythin' of the kind. Excellence was his only faith, all he cared for - he went to the human cities because he believed he could forge greater masterpieces there, than back in the halls under the mountains, mark my words!"

Nor had this been an erroneous belief. At this point, the human empire was already vast, and growing steadily vaster. They were well-organized, united behind the devoted worship of their patron deity, driven and motivated. Those who did not fight on the front lines labored tirelessly to keep all the other wheels and cogs needed to propel such a titanic war-effort spinning - logistics, food-production, crafting and repair of equipment, all every bit as vital to ultimate victory as the man brandishing spear and shield on the battlefield. Vast quantities of ore, both mundane and precious, poured into the human manufactures, smelters and forges - along with other, more exotic ingredients of use to enchanters and alchemists. Once he had established his bonafides by providing masterclass training for a bevvy of human smiths, Drewyn's master was able to skim the cream of this vast industry, putting materials in his hands that he would never have been able to obtain in the dwarven lands, especially now that the enormous war had disrupted so many trade - and supply - routes.

Thus, it was he who had - after the creation of the first DragonRiders - been commissioned to craft suitable equipment for them. He who had devised a way to soften and shape the discarded scales of the black dragons - revered and worshiped by the humans as living avatars of their god's power - and from them craft armor that could tap directly into the magical bond that rider and dragon shared, creating a suit that was as much magic as physical in nature. "Wait, so my armor wouldn't work for anyone not a DragonRider?" Anitra interjected, and received a shrugging half-nod from Drewyn. "Ech, the act'l armor-pieces would still turn a blade, 'm sure. But if ye weren't a DragonRider, it would nae offer any protection for all the skin it leaves bare." Indeed, he proudly explained as he continued, he had continued to refine and improve his master's original armor-design, reducing the amount of scales needed without skimping on the protection, ultimately creating a suit that was light, compact and completely unencumbering, while still offering protection that a knight in full plate-mail armor could only dream of.

Of course, not all his master's ideas had been accepted as eagerly as the black scale armor. The idea for the sword that Anitra now wore had occurred to him even back then - and the meteoric 'fallen star' iron needed for it had been easily available to him. But there just hadn't been enough black dragons to go around - there were always more needed on every battlefront than what was actually available, and putting one out of commission entirely for a whole day, even leaving him weakened for a while afterwards, was judged an unacceptable price for even such a weapon as the master smith was promising. After all, useful though the DragonRiders had proven to be, as highly-mobile shocktroopers - especially considering that they'd originally been intended as nothing more than a receptacle for the black dragon's frustrated libido - the black dragons themselves remained far, far more important. Only _they_could face off against the Gods Themselves in their creator's absence, and no amount of fancy swords could change that.

Indeed, it was only with great reluctance that the priesthood directed the black dragons to occasionally donate the far smaller quantity of blood needed for the Elixir of Immortality. It had, Drewyn revealed, originally been devised by a human alchemist - and was reserved for humanity's greatest heroes, on and off the battlefield. Generals, strategists, administrative geniuses and - yes - particularly masterful craftsmen, were all granted the Elixir as an ultimate boon, ensuring that their talents remained available to the empire. Drewyn's master, too, had been granted this honor, though in his case it was more symbolic than anything. Drewyn had not... but since his master also helped to manufacture the Elixir, he was taught the recipe all the same. "And I'd like ta think that the priestesses would approve of me usin' it now, ta keep the old arts alive and continue to provide for those few DragonRiders who still manage ta rise."

Drewyn trailed off at this point, a morose look on his face, and Anitra felt compelled to gently prod him onward. "So... what happened?" she asked softly, and he sighed gustily. "I dinnae, that's the damned thing! One day, we were working in tha enchantment-lab, when we heard a commotion outside. When we went to check, we found the whole capital in chaos. Rioting and fighting in the streets! There was no sense in it, no cause that we could see - it was as if a pall of madness had descended across the whole city without warnin'! Well, tha's what we thought at tha time, anyhows. When we escaped the city, we soon learned that it was everywhere. Tha whole empire was tearin' itself apart! We never could make sense of it, but ah figure that whatever happened, we were shielded from it by tha lab's wards an' our own dwarven resistance..."

That checked out, as far as Anitra was concerned. Dwarves were inherently resistant to magic, though not quite to the same degree as the dragons - and it seemed unlikely that there had been any other dwarves, never mind dragons, hiding behind such potent wards at that exact moment. Experimental enchanting required powerful insulation - she knew that much from the Utopia's resident enchanters. Extremely potent wards were inscribed in any workshop dealing with such things, both to prevent interference from outside magical effects, and to shield the surroundings if something went badly wrong inside. Considering the level of magical skill and power that the old human empire seemingly possessed, judging from those rare artifacts of that era that had been found, their labs would presumably have been even more heavily warded than modern-day examples.

Still, even all of that hadn't managed to shield them completely, as Drewyn confirmed with a weary sigh. It hadn't taken long for the two of them to realize that they no longer could recall the name of their ultimate benefactor, the god of humanity - and that those_outside_ the lab had fared far worse. They no longer remembered_anything_ involving him; the war, the conquest, the empire, the unity of purpose he had provided - all gone. Whether this had been the root of the chaos, or just a symptom of it, was more than he could say. But they had soon concluded that it wasn't just humanity that had been affected. The various non-humans they'd kept as slaves had also forgotten - but in return, they'd recalled dreams of freedom. Needless to say, the violent and bloodsoaked slave-uprising that followed did little to curb the chaos that consumed the entirety of the human empire, and soon generals and provincial governors who had once sworn unreserved fealty to their divine ruler were carving up kingdoms, empires and city-states out of it for their own use.

With nowhere else to go, the two dwarves had headed back to the dwarven lands... only to discover that while the dwarves, too, had forgotten about the war, the conquest, and the god who had started it, they _had_remembered the perceived betrayal of Drewyn's master. He was killed - lynched - while Drewyn escaped by the hair of his whiskers, carrying with him his master's final, gasped order: To not let the arts he had taught him die. He had done his level best to carry out that wish ever since - setting up his hermitage in the old volcano since he had nowhere else to go.

The location had been chosen quite carefully - the jungle beneath was a vast storehouse of potent, alchemical ingredients, as he knew well from the packing-labels of many of the supplies he'd once received back in the now-ruined capital of the human empire. With them, he soon managed to craft a reliable 'growth'-potion, which let him take on the aspect of a particularly blocky and large-bearded human, and thus trade and gossip with some of the human settlements dotting the jungle's outskirts without attracting undue attention. The chaos, he had found, subsided with remarkable speed after the initial orgy of bloodshed - with newly-minted kingdoms receiving swift legitimization by way of the gods who were now patronizing them. The same gods that mankind had been fighting - and winning - against mere years before.

Soon, he also began to hear rumors about roving, monstrous black dragons - deprived of the creator who had given them purpose and the priesthood that had seen to their needs, they had been reduced to little more than wandering monsters. It had pained his heart... but eventually, he had also heard rumors of a black-haired maiden being spotted riding one of the beasts around, and realized that at least_some_ of the DragonChildren who had served as heavy infantry in the imperial armies had survived the chaotic disintegration of said empire. They had impregnated human - or other - women with DragonRiders-in-potentia... and every now and then, such girls were bound to cross the path of a black dragon.

Thus, he had set to work spreading his own rumors - about a reclusive, dwarven smith whose den could only be reached on dragon wing, and who provided exceptional armor only for those who possessed the strength to ride a black dragon. Decades, even centuries could pass between the arrival of a genuine pair - indeed, even the inevitable frauds, be they patently obvious or deviously clever were a rare and precious interruption of his monotonous hermitage - but come they did, and for each of them he crafted armor and weapon. Some of them were rude, hostile, threatening - others were meek, confused, uncertain. But regardless, he made for them the very best armor he could - in honor of his dead master, who had reached for the very peak of craftsmanship and attained it, only to lose everything in the end.

Anitra slowly nodded as the story came to an end. What Drewyn had told matched quite well with the knowledge she'd recently obtained from King Triton - the human empire had been marching towards glory, only for their divine leader to suddenly disappear, along with all memory of his existence. Then several of the surviving gods had moved in to snap up pieces of the now-divided humanity, and slowly the world she knew had grown from this cracked foundation. Drewyn's perspective, as someone who had actually witnessed this ancient empire crumble was certainly invaluable from a historical standpoint - but as he himself had admitted, it really didn't answer the pressing question of what exactly had happened to cause it. Well, circumstantial evidence suggested that it had been magical in nature... but that had been kind of a no-brainer in the first place.

Well, she'd have time enough to ponder the deeper implications of what Drewyn had told her later - on the trip home, certainly. For now, the millenia-old mastersmith had very neatly provided her with some openings that she was duty-bound to exploit. "You know, I do_wonder if hiding out here and forging a suit of armor every century or so is really the best way to honor your master's memory..." she intoned thoughtfully, glancing over at the dwarf, whose brow knitted in a mix of anger and consternation. "Well, if ye put it_that way, it's going ta sound bad, o'course..." he grumbled, but Anitra wasn't about to let up.

"Oh, don't get me wrong - I understand that you didn't have a lot of options back when you set this place up originally. But that was several millennia ago! The world has changed, in all kinds of ways. The arts of mankind's fallen empire may have been forgotten, but new techniques of alchemy, enchanting, and even metalwork have been developed since. I mean... just think about it! If you could combine those ancient, all-but-forgotten arts with the finest of_modern_ craftsmanship, you may even surpass your long-lost master! And isn't that supposed to be the only true way to repay someone for teaching you?" The final bit of the argument was more or less extemporized, based on a sudden, yet vague memory of someone claiming this was the case. Nonetheless, it seemed to hit home, and Drewyn's eyes widened with thought. "I'd nae thought of it like that..." he mumbled, pulling on his beard with both hands now.

After that, it was easy. Her swordsmanship was on the fritz on account of the pregnancy, sure, but her silver tongue still moved unimpeded. Now that she had Drewyn thinking in the right circles, convincing him that the perfect place to find skilled craftsmen to compare notes with, and all the exotic ingredients he could ever wish for, was at the Dragon Utopia. "I trust ye will nae forget tha vow ye made when first we met, though!" Drewyn declared guardedly as the agreement was finalized. "I may share the ancient enchantments, if I find one worthy of them among yer 'Utopia's craftsfolk... but the Elixir, I cannot share. I was bound with a spell when I learned it, so that if ever I tell it to any not approved by the priestesses, me heart will explode within my chest! I s'pose that magic may've faded o'er time, but I'd nae like ta test it!"

Both Anitra and Blake renewed their promise not to mention Drewyn's Elixir to anyone - and indeed agreed to keep his age and origins a secret. After all, the natural assumption - considering that the long-standing legends of the dragonscale-smith of Mt. Hellfire never mentioned his name - was, after all, that Drewyn was merely the latest in a long line of hermit-smiths, each passing down their arts to a worthy successor in due time. As long as no mention of millennia-old dwarves sustained by dragonblood elixir was made, no-one was likely to guess the truth.

Before nightfall, Blake was back on the wing and heading home - while Drewyn began to forge up and enchant a suitably durable slab of steel that he could use as a 'new address' sign, sending any black dragons and riders who might follow the old legends to his smithy in the future onward to the Utopia. A reliable transport-dragon - probably a red, considering the amount of 'luggage' Drewyn would want to bring - would be sent out as soon as they reached the Utopia and let the other dragons know that they'd located such a prime candidate for their Master's Invitation Program.

All in all, the trip had been a resounding success, and the whole thing had gone every bit as swiftly and smoothly as they could've hoped. Of course, they still had to fly half the length of the continent... both ways... and even a black dragon's wings had their limitations. Thus, as expected, six full days had passed by the time Blake and Anitra stepped back into their chambers, having reported their find to Argentia and gotten Drewyn's transportation arranged along the way.

As they entered, Melora sprang to her hooves, hands raised emphatically. "You're back! Thank the gods!" Anitra's eyes gravitated unavoidably towards the mare's hefty tits as the sudden movement made them bounce. They looked bigger than usual - bigger than the_current_, heavily-pregnant usual, even. The internal pressure exercised by milk-ducts swollen with a week's worth of the fatty liquid was so great that the external veins stood out even through the thin, velvet-soft coat that covered them, and a slow, steady drip of milk was leaking from the nipples. Still, painful though they no doubt were, Anitra rather suspected that this discomfort _wasn't_at the roots of her eagerness.

When they entered, she'd been kneeling naked next to a large barrel - the same one Cerulea had delivered a week earlier, but now outfitted with a couple of extra accessories. Atop it stood a pot-like metal object with a wide top and a bottom that roughly matched the barreltop upon which it rested - currently half-filled with a viscous, slimy, cloudy-white liquid which was lazily spiraling towards the center. Her nakedness and the contents of that basin suggested that she'd just finished servicing the latest couple of 'donors' when Blake and Anitra arrived - as she'd done every day since they left. Meanwhile, right near the bottom of the barrel, a regular tap had been inserted into the barrel's wooden boards, and the same kind of liquid was leaking out of it at the moment, and into a low trough set up beneath it - though this white slime was noticeably stained yellowish-brown.

"Something wrong, Melora?" Anitra asked keenly, stepping up closer to cast an assessing look up and down the barrel. It looked just the same as when they'd left, as far as she could tell. "I'm... not sure..." the mare replied, gripping one wrist with the other hand, as if she was deliberately stopping herself from wringing her hands. "But... it's been completely quiet for the past several days. No struggling or knocking or anything, not even a bit of rocking around to suggest movement." Now it was Anitra's turn to cast a nervous glance up at Blake, who craned his neck down to give her a comforting smile. "I doubt there's any call to panic - you took every precaution, as I recall. Still, I suppose we may as well fish her out, eh?"

The metallic bath was quickly removed, and the top of the barrel - held fast by magic - was loosened with a word and the tap of a talon from Blake. The hole in the middle - through which the liquid had flowed earlier - made for a convenient handhold, and Anitra quickly pulled it off to check on the contents. The barrel was, as before, filled to the brim with dragon-cum, and the bubbles rising steadily to the surface and popping messily there made it clear that the amulet connected to the Elemental Plane of Air that had been deposited at the bottom of the barrel was still doing its job, oxygenating the thick liquid.

Cerulea had worked hard to gather so much of it, to be sure - and in the intervening week, a couple of Anitra's 'friends' from among the male dragon populace had dropped by every day to let Melora 'milk' them into the intake at the top, while simultaneously draining off some of the... less fresh portion from the bottom. Of course, the real key had been the potion that Direza had drunk before she'd been pushed into the barrel and had the lid sealed above her head - a 'water-breathing' potion on a completely different level than anything the alchemists of the surface-world had ever devised. Not only was it powerful enough to let the imbiber breathe in just about any liquid that contained decent amounts of air, be it ever so thick and slimy, but it also lacked any appreciable time-limit. Defined as a 'semi-permanent' potion, it had altered Direza's lungs and chest-muscles on a basic level, and those changes would remain until she imbibed an 'antidote'.

For the last week, she had been fully submerged in cum. Eating, drinking and breathing cum, cum, and nothing but cum. It had filled the insides of her body just as it coated the outside, seeping into every pore as it filled her stomach, intestines, bladder, nose, lungs... it was hardly a healthy, rich or varied diet, and she'd probably be in dire need of a proper meal once she got out, if she was to avoid a case of malnutrition, but she wouldn't have starved.

That being said, Anitra had rather expected her to pop up the moment the lid was removed from the barrel, and exchanged a concerned glance with Melora as they hovered around the open top for a few moments. The bubbles continued to rise - nothing else did. "Maybe she's asleep?" Anitra commented with forced lightness of tone. "I mean, it's not like she'd have a chance to keep track of day and night down there..." Which was true enough, but didn't change the situation. If Direza wasn't rising up from the white muck herself, they'd have to pull her out.

Melora was already leaning over the edge of the barrel, eyes intent, but Anitra stopped her with a touch to the shoulder. "I'll do it. I put her in there, so I'll pull her out." As she shrugged off her loose traveling-robes and threw them aside, she gestured towards her own corner of the room with her chin. "Go find the counter-potion in the meantime. Oh, and Blake, would you mind firing up the bath a bit? Get it good and hot and bubbly."

Both of them moved into action, leaving Anitra to sink her arms into the gooey white mess, fingers seeking anything solid and fleshy they could find within. The musky smell rising from the barrel was intense, heady in its own way - though a touch stale despite the regular addition of new material. It didn't take her long to find something that felt like a slick, cum-soaked head of hair under the surface, but even when she stroked it, there was no reaction. Worry rising despite her own and Blake's reassurances that they'd taken enough precautions to ensure that nothing could go _seriously_wrong, she leaned over further - grimacing as her belly squeezed against the side of the barrel - and reached in nearly to the shoulder so that she could reach under Direza's armpits for a good grip.

With a heave, she lifted the motionless drow out of the muck. She didn't weigh much, and Anitra still had her inhuman strength, but for all of that, she probably should have left it to Melora, on reflection. The thick cum had a lot of resistance in it, far more than water, and it parted only reluctantly around Direza's rising head while Anitra's back complained loudly about this new challenge. With a grunt, she leveraged the slack arms up over the edge, leaving Direza leaning on it with her head lolling over and her petite breasts caught against the side in a no-doubt uncomfortable way. There still wasn't any reaction.

Trying to keep the icy feeling in her spine from running amuck, Anitra quickly scraped the layer of sticky cum off the ring that encircled Direza's throat. Every part of her was covered in the stuff, of course - her hair was thick with it, her face unrecognizable behind a sticky white mask, her dangling arms steadily dripping thick globs of jizz onto the floor... one could hardly even tell what color her skin was underneath it all. But once it had been cleared from the neck-ring, Anitra was able to make out a soft, green glow from the small emerald set into the front. The ruby beside it, meanwhile, was dead and dull.

The minor enchantments on those two gemstones were simply indicators - and they were currently making it clear that the ring was working just fine. If Direza had started drowning at any point, if her pulse had ever grown dangerously fast, slow or erratic, the ring would have activated automatically and teleported her directly to the Utopia's main infirmary where skilled healers were on duty every hour of every day. These kinds of rings were a relatively recent invention - their crafting spurred primarily by the growing popularity of swimming and diving in the lake beneath the castle that Anitra's own seaside vacation had inadvertently sparked. There'd been a few near-misses when divers had grown entranced by the beauty of the gemstone-speckled sea bottom and lost track of time, finding their water-breathing potions wearing off an uncomfortable distance from the surface. Only the sharp eyes and remarkably swift swimming of a bathing silver had prevented one young couple from drowning outright...

A wet cough resounded as Direza finally moved. Spasms racked her slimy body, and another raking cough sent a huge splattering of milky-white cum out of her mouth and nose while her whole body seemed to convulse. Exposed to the air once again, her lungs were now struggling to clear themselves of the thick fluid they'd been forced to breathe for the past week. Uncertain about what, if anything, she could do to help, Anitra awkwardly patted Direza on her slime-covered back as repeated coughs sent spurts of steadily shrinking magnitude to the floor, where they splattered all over her feet. It really was impressive how much cum a pair of lungs could hold, Anitra idly thought as the coughs began to give way to wheezing breaths.

Fortunately, Melora was already standing ready at her side, potion in hand - along with a tall glass of clear, icy-cold water, just for good measure. Grabbing the potion, she pulled up Direza's head - which hung limply from her neck once again now that the coughing had largely passed - cradling it against her shoulder as she lifted the unstoppered bottle to the drow's slimy lips. "Here, my pet, drink this..." she whispered soothingly to her as she tipped it back, pouring the smoky purple liquid down the elf's throat. This was the reason why time-limited water-breathing potions were generally preferable - the changes that the original potion had wrought on Direza's lungs had made them unsuitable for breathing air, allowing her to do so only with a struggle. The counter-potion was needed in order to reverse the changes and turn her into a regular old air-breather again.

Fortunately, despite a couple of small coughs causing the potion to spatter across Anitra's hand and Direza's face, enough of it disappeared down the drow's gullet to take effect. The DragonRider's inhuman eyes could actually see it working - a strange glow spreading inside the skinny, cum-covered, half-submerged body as the magic took effect, spreading out from the stomach to the lungs and setting to work, even while barely-perceivable offshoots went off to reverse other, more minor changes. Soon, a renewed wave of coughing resulted, releasing only a fine spray of cum-mist, before Direza's breathing finally settled down to something resembling ease.

Even then, the elf-girl was stirring only slightly, and with a sigh of surrender, Anitra gestured for Melora to give her a hand, mumbling to herself that she could have easily handled the slightly-built drow alone if she hadn't been so bloody pregnant. Together, they pulled Direza fully out of the barrel, and carried her between them - one arm stretched across each set of shoulders - to the bathtub, which Blake had dutifully prepared in the meantime. The water was steaming hot, bubbles were rising from air-circulation amulets not unlike the one that still rested at the bottom of the now-vacated barrel, and it looked like he'd even ramped up the general circulation of the water! Not a bad idea, really, considering how much of a mess Direza still was. Just carrying her had left both Anitra and Melora liberally smeared with the thick jizz that clung to every square inch of her gray-black skin...

Together, they climbed into the water, and began to clean off Direza - while carefully keeping her head above the water. Anitra personally sponged off her face, finding that her eyes - unsurprisingly - were tightly shut. Indeed, considering how much cum had been caught in her long lashes, it seemed unlikely that she could have opened them prior to now even if she'd wanted to. More surprisingly, her face wasn't twisted in terror, agony or despair, but seemed almost... at peace, really. The kind of blank expression you'd expect to see on a carefully-carved stature of a meditating monk or something.

The hot, bubbling water, however, seemed to finally breathe life into the dark elf, and her limbs began to shiver and stir. Finally, her eyes flew open, showing heavily bloodshot whites, and she gasped loudly, limbs flailing for a moment as she looked around wildly. Then her sight fixated on Anitra, who smiled with relief at this first true sign of life - only to gasp herself as Direza threw herself into her arms without a word, wrapping shaking limbs around her and holding on tight while she trembled and quietly sobbed. Melora grinned behind her, smiling too, and took the opportunity to clean Direza's now-exposed back. The tears that were now staining her shoulder felt gooey and viscous, she noted - as if her servant's body had grown so suffused with the white slime that even her tears had turned to cum...

Blake, looming over the trio like a shadow, craned his neck down for a closer look and grimaced at the thick cum-smell that was rising from the bath despite the best efforts of the circulation-system. "So... remind me..." he drawled as Direza continued to cling fiercely to Anitra "The idea of that whole exercise was to get her past her aversion to cum, right?" Anitra looked up at him, past the head that now rested so firmly on her shoulder, and continued to run wet fingers through its ivory-white tresses, combing out large, hairy dollops of jizz. "Well, yes. I figure after this, she isn't likely to flinch just because someone sprays her face with cum, or hesitate to stick her tongue up somebody's asshole just because there's a fresh load dripping out of it." The lightness of her voice did a fine job of disguising her own second-guessing - had she gone too far this time, after all?

Blake, of course, was not so easily deceived, and raised his head with a harrumph. "Oh, I get the idea. It just occurs to me that such an experience is just as likely to give her a phobic fear of cum that'll effectively put her off anything with a dick for the rest of her very long life. Bit of a coin-flip, really." Anitra would have shrugged, but she didn't want to disturb the still-sobbing Direza, and thus contented herself with sending the telepathic equivalent his way. "Well, she is an elf - a drow, even. They're mentally tough - have to be, on account of their long lives. Like dragons, right?" she said out loud to go with the mental shrug. Blake snorted again and stepped away from the dragon-sized bathtub with a final parting salvo. "Oh, sure... but then again, I wouldn't want to spend a week in that barrel either."

It took more than twenty minutes - closer to half an hour, really - before Direza started to calm down. By then, every part of her skin that wasn't inaccessible by reason of being squeezed tightly against Anitra's had been carefully cleaned - though her hair would still require a proper soak and some shampoo... maybe one of the new, remarkably effective variants that had started to arrive by way of the Ganarãjya trade-route. Melora had already cleaned herself up, climbed out, and toweled off - and had left for the castle kitchens, soon to return with a feast worthy of a king. So far, Direza had only managed to still her sobbing long enough to drink the glass of water that Melora had so thoughtfully prepared before taking her to the tub - but at long last, the storm was clearing.

Direza still didn't seem to want to relinquish skin-contact with Anitra, but she at least let herself be parted from her enough that they could finish scrubbing her front, as well as lowering her hair into the water to start soaking it. Even then, they didn't say much... until finally, Anitra couldn't handle the semi-silence any longer. There was a time and a place for being the stern mistress, and a time to allow yourself to get a bit soppy with your submissive - at least, that's what she decided then and there.

"Did I go a bit too far, my dear?" She thus finally asked, one hand caressing Direza's slender neck while the other kept running the sponge across her belly. "You had me rather worried about the... state you were in when we pulled you out..." A slight shudder went through the slim elf, like a passing memory. "It was... certainly not an experience I would care to repeat..." she admitted, voice haunted, which said quite a lot by itself - Direza wasn't generally in the habit of complaining about whatever humiliating penalties Anitra piled on her.

"But... it was... it was like two different punishments at the same time. Being... submerged like that, having to drink it, eat it, breathe_it every moment of the day... it was awful, _but..." Anitra nodded, listening more to her submissive friend's voice_than her words. While it obviously _had pushed some limits,that side of it had clearly hit squarely in the midst of her masochistic love of humiliation. "And the other?" She asked lightly, signaling her understanding rather than waiting for Direza to find the right words to explain how she managed to enjoy having awful things done to her.

She hesitated for a minute, while Anitra gently maneuvered her deeper into the water, half-floating on her back so that the bubbling water could start to dissolve the thick globs of cum that still clung to her hair. "The... isolation." She finally said, a more pleasant shiver running through her as she felt her beloved mistress' fingers massage her scalp. "I was... so alone in there, just floating in the lukewarm darkness. When you've... gone away before, I still had Melora to talk to. I don't like being alone. Brings back memories. I lost track of time, too. Felt like I'd been in there for weeks, months, years. Like you'd just... forgotten about me. Left me in there."

Her voice was cracking now, and Anitra quickly leaned in to cradle her head between her breasts, shushing her like you would a fussy infant - something that she figured she might as well get in some practice for already. After a couple of minutes of accelerated breathing, Direza calmed back down again and - with a slightly thicker voice than before - continued her attempt to explain. "In the end, though, I realized that I simply had to... trust you, mistress. I had to have faith that you would come for me, as you had promised. I'd been panicking for a while - how long, I couldn't say. Trying to escape, trying to call for help, even though I couldn't do much more than gurgle. But once I realized that, I was able to... calm myself. I think I finally slipped into a trance, like I used to do when communing with Lolth. Not the same, of course... I don't hear her voice anymore. Instead, it was almost like I'd retreated into some different memories. Memories of... us. I saw you. Heard your voice. Felt your touch. It was paradise. When I felt myself waking up, felt the goo clinging to my skin, filling my belly, clogging my throat... I was terrified that I was just going to find myself back in the darkness, alone with the... older memories. But I wasn't. When I finally found the courage to open my eyes, you_were there... not a memory, but the _real you. It was almost more than I could handle..."

Reminded once again of just how marvelously devoted Direza - a woman who had thrown away a century of ruthless, tyrannical rule among a race of sadistic backstabbers to reveal a fragile girl underneath who just wanted to love and be loved - was to her, Anitra impulsively leaned forwards to hug her from behind. "I'm glad you at least enjoyed part of that experience..." she whispered into her ears, and felt the young heart beat faster beneath her hands. "...and I promise you that I will never again, be it as a task, a challenge or a punishment, subject you to such isolation. I'll be with you when I can, and when I cannot, you will have other friends beside you. That is the least responsibility a master should display towards a pet - and I should not have forgotten it in the first place."

Direza burrowed deeper into her arms and mumbled something that might have been a "Thank you, mistress" - or maybe an "I love you, mistress"? Even Anitra's sharp ears couldn't quite tell. Shortly after, Melora arrived along with a helpful dragon from the kitchen, carrying enough food and drink to flush any lingering quantities of cum out of Direza's system - while also providing some compensation for all the nutrition she hadn't gotten in the barrel. Melora was clearly happy to see her friend back on her feet and eating with undisguised eagerness, and as the barrel and the related paraphernalia was cleared away, things soon returned to normal in the Champion's Quarters, and everybody settled back down to wait for the first baby to arrive.

Not that there wasn't some changes. With her mistress' permission, Direza spent the next several nights on a cot by Anitra's chair, where she invariably slept these days - the trip to Mt. Hellfire had reminded her rather forcibly just how poorly a plain old horizontal bed tended to support all the extra weight she was carrying - physically clinging to her mistress' feet as she slumbered fitfully. And just a couple of days later, Anitra spotted an interesting exchange in a corner of the room.

It wasn't unusual for Melora and Direza to spend their breaks indulging in some form of sexual play together, often in plain sight of their masters - after all, said masters not only tolerated but actively_encouraged_ it. Most often, this took the form of Melora dragging Direza into a corner and reaming her asshole with the help of the Ring of Priap, followed by a careful tongue-cleaning before the magically-summoned dick was again dismissed. This tickled Direza's love of humiliation nicely, while providing Melora with the more primal, visceral pleasure of a male-type orgasm.

Three things were obvious about this shared habit of theirs. Firstly, that Melora wasn't getting nearly as much out of it as Direza did, since_her_ greatest pleasure came from physical pain. Secondly, that if she was to draw on the education she'd received growing up as a Priestess of Lolth, Direza could easily have Melora writhing in pleasure-laced agony between her fingers. Thirdly, that Melora would never, ever ask Direza to do that, nor expected her to volunteer those skills - a fact for which Direza clearly harbored a deep and abiding gratitude.

On this occasion, however, the interaction went down a bit differently. Direza was on her knees, working Melora's horsecock with her hands, mouth, tongue and even her petite, yet pert tits. Sometimes, her hands strayed down below to squeeze the heavy, light-brown pouch that dangled there, sending visible shudders of pain through the mare - and throughout, she appeared to do her best to maintain eye-contact when she could, which wasn't easy considering the intervening belly. Anitra's immediate conclusion was that Melora - who, unlike Direza herself, had been in a position to observe it - had shared the details of how she'd handled Manushya during the closing moments of the party earlier.

Then, finally, Melora's hips started to buck uncontrollably - and Direza pulled back, forcefully jacking the hefty rod before her as she opened her mouth. Melora's copious load splattered all across her face and chest in thick, slimy white ropes while she caught as much of it as she could in her mouth - and after swallowing the result, she coquettishly wiped another dollop off her face with two fingers, then jammed them into her mouth to suck them clean. All while maintaining unblinking eye-contact, despite the goo weighing down her lashes and nearly covering one of her eyes entirely.

Anitra shared a silent, eyebrow-raised glance with Blake, who'd looked up from the tome he'd been inspecting when he felt Anitra's keen interest over their link. He shrugged and lowered his head again. The thing about a coin-flip is that you've got even odds of winning it, I suppose... his mental voice commented lightly, keeping the line where their servants couldn't hear it and get self-conscious. Privately, Anitra felt that while it indubitably had been a gamble, the odds had been rather more in her favor than some straight coin-flip - but saying so, whether out loud or by telepathy, seemed like tempting fate. So she simply watched, with a quiet smile on her lips, while her fingers migrated down towards her crotch...

THE END

What... were you expecting the title to refer to an official engagement? Blake down on one knee with an oversized diamond ring in his claws? Shyeah right! Anyway, the next chapter will be called 'New Arrivals' - have fun trying to guess what THAT will refer to!