FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Aethyr Machine

©2023 Bruno Hirschkoff

*

_The following is a work of fiction intended for adult audiences. If you are not an adult, this isn't for you. All characters, situations, settings, locations, names and concepts are the intellectual property of the Author. Do not repost, distribute, alter or copy any element of this work without the express written permission of the author. _

_All characters, settings, religions, histories and geopolitical structures are fictional and resemblance to real-world characters, settings, religions, histories and geopolitical structures is purely coincidental. _

*

Chapter 3

The Hairy Fig (Pt.II)

Cael

Cael swept his neat stacks of coins back into the cloth pouch from which they had come, and hung the pouch carefully inside his jerkin. It was not a life-changingly large sum, but enough to make the Equid nervous, and his nervousness made him a target. Trygve was waiting for him, her face carefully expressionless. At least she'd put her crossbow away, Cael thought.

Niko Halassie's contacts had been very clear in their threats to Cael when they came to relieve him of his chest of Voidstones. If he tried to leave his room at the Hairy Fig prior to dawn the following day, they would track him down and kill him. But that was specifically a ruse to throw Trygve off their trail, and she had come early.

So there was no further reason for Cael to stay put, other than the threats.

Trygve's crossbow did not stay at her hip for long. The Lupa woman listened intently at the door of the room, for even the slightest sound from beyond that might indicate there was a guard posted. She heard nothing. Very carefully she tried the door, and found it was wedged shut from the outside.

"Are we trapped?" Cael asked in a frightened whisper.

"No. I got in here, did I not? We shall leave the same way."

"Out the window?!" the Equid squeaked.

"Aye, do you have a better idea?"

Cael was silent.

"I'll go first, then I'll guide you out. We'll hold on to the edge of the gutter and slide along the building, then enter through another window. Even if there is a guard, they will not know you are gone until the morning when they check on you."

Cael's heart hammered in his chest. Despite his fear, this was terribly exciting. He fastened the toggles on the front of his jerkin and tightened his belt around his midriff. Trygve reached and took one of Cael's hands. She turned it over in the candlelight and felt his palm. He gazed up at her with wide, ice-blue eyes.

"Your hands are soft, Cael. You might cut them on the gutter. Here."

Trygve unfastened her cloak and then her jerkin, and nonchalantly unwound the linen strapping around her chest. Cael stammered something and turned away from the Lupa woman's bare breasts, and she grinned toothily at his back.

"You're the first man I've met in a long time who didn't drool and grow a third leg the moment he saw a tit," Trygve observed. "Either you're _exceptionally _well-mannered and polite, or your attractions are... elsewhere...? More interested in men...?"

Cael's ears were pinned to his skull and his jaw clenched.

"Ahh, it's the latter," Trygve continued. She tore a couple of strips from her binder, and then wrapped what remained of it back around herself and re-dressed. "You can turn around again now, I'm decent."

Cael did so, and Trygve wrapped each of the Equid's soft hands with strips of still-warm linen. He seemed likely to burst into tears, or lean in and cuddle her, so Trygve brusquely finished and moved to the window, which she opened.

"Trygve?"

"What?"

"It's... it's not the latter."

Trygve raised an eyebrow. "Alright?"

"It's... sort of both."

The Lupa woman chuckled and lifted her buttocks onto the windowsill. Then she reached outside and grasped the edge of the gutter and pulled herself out to hang by her hands in the dark.

Cael exhaled sharply in a little equine snort. He clenched his hands around Trygve's linens. She had no reason to show him kindness, but he got the feeling that there was a lot more to Trygve than her brusque and prickly nature suggested. Then her face reappeared at the window.

"Are you coming? Put your skinny arse on the windowsill and get out here."

Cael complied nervously and felt Trygve's hand on his back. She was hanging by one hand from the gutter, her feet nonchalantly crossed beneath her, dangling fifteen feet above the ground, and still had the presence of mind to be able to steady Cael and stop him toppling out. He grit his teeth. He had to do this to impress Trygve, if nothing else. He reached out above himself. His fingertips just barely brushed the underside of the gutter. It was perilously far.

"I can't reach," he said.

Trygve grunted. "Get something to sit on then, to raise you."

Cael disappeared. Trygve took the time to shuffle along the gutter. Two rooms down was a vacant room, with no light in the window and no sign of activity within. That was their entry point, she decided. Cael appeared again at the window, peering out towards her. He had a porcelain wash basin in his hands.

"Good," Trygve said. Put it on the windowsill upside down and hold it there while you get up onto it."

Cael complied, and wobbled. Trygve's hand on his back steadied his nerves, and his body. Now he could reach the gutter. It was cold and wet and slimy and its edge was sharp. But the linens wrapped around his palms stopped it from cutting into his hands. Experimentally he tried lifting himself and found that it wasn't as scary as he thought it would be.

"Now, do not look down. That is why people panic. Pretend that your hooves are one inch off the ground, not fifteen feet. But do not let go. And kick the window shut when you're out."

Cael took a deep breath and complied. As his body lifted up and out of the window, the porcelain wash basin slipped out from beneath him. He instinctively grabbed for it and let go of the gutter.

Trygve reacted like lightning. She grabbed his arm as he fell, and snarled in pain as her shoulder was wrenched by the Equid's weight. He screamed in terror and the wash basin smashed into a million pieces on the cobbles below.

"Don't look down!" Trygve snarled. "Climb up my body. Get back up to the gutter. Now! Cael! Focus!"

Cael scrambled and clambered up the Lupa woman's body, and as soon as he'd released her hand, she returned it to the gutter overhead. Once he was back up alongside her, she stared at him. But there was no anger in her eyes, as he was expecting. Instead, there was concern. Somehow, that was worse.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice husky with the effort of hanging onto the gutter.

Cael nodded. "I'm s-sorry," he whimpered.

Then Trygve snarled. "Don't ever apologise. You reacted the way anyone would have. Let's go. Somebody will have heard that, and we need to not be here."

The pair of them shuffled hand over hand along the gutter, until they were outside the darkened window. As she had before, Trygve hung by one arm, a little more laboriously this time, and used the strip of metal from her crossbow to lift the latch and open the window. Then she swung her legs within, and immediately leaned back out to guide Cael in.

"Come on. Swing your legs in. Your arse won't touch the sill, but I'm going to catch you by your balls if I need to and pull you in."

"Please don't!"

Trygve laughed huskily.

Cael took a few deep breaths, then lifted his legs over the windowsill. Trygve straddled his knees, applying her weight to him, and grabbed his jerkin with both hands.

"Let go," she commanded.

He hesitated. She growled. He let go. His body fell backward and he windmilled his arms wildly, but Trygve held him tight by his tunic, and hauled him into the dark room. Cael fell on top of her, and lay there for a long moment, trembling.

"Hey. You did it, you can get up now," Trygve said, prodding him in the ribs.

Cael remained where he was, gripping her tightly with his eyes tight shut. Trygve grumbled. But she didn't move. Instead, she raised a hand and gently stroked his straw-coloured mane, and looped the other around his waist. She comforted him for a moment, then bodily rolled him off of her and stood. Her shoulder ached. It wasn't dislocated, but she knew she would be sore the next morning.

She glanced around the room. It was indeed vacant, and she took a moment to enjoy the silence and the stillness. Cael laid on his back on the wooden floor, staring at the ceiling and clenching and unclenching his fists rhythmically over his chest. The poor colt was traumatised. Her heart skipped a beat suddenly. It wasn't for Cael, but for Dagmar. Was she at the Fig? Had she come?

Hurriedly, Trygve helped Cael to his feet and dusted the windowsill-muck off the seat of his trousers, then padded silently to the door to listen once again. The corridor beyond was silent, but the sound of a couple fucking noisily in the next room was troubling. It would cover any subtle sounds like breathing or snoring from outside. Equally, it would cover the sound of their escape, if she was careful. She reached into her jerkin and pulled out a tiny phial of oil. Applying a few drops to each of the door's hinges, she tried the latch. It was unlocked. She slipped a bolt into the stock of her crossbow and wound back the lock until it clicked into position. Then she swung the door wide and stepped out into the hallway. There was no-one there, but a chair had been wedged beneath the latch of the room they had come from. Trygve reached in to grab Cael by the hand and drag him out into the hallway.

"Pretend we've just fucked or something, that's how to fit in around here," Trygve said.

She released her bowstring and draped herself bawdily around him just as an Equid who looked for all the world like the one she'd dunked in the canal earlier came meandering past. Her heart thudded as they made eye contact. But the Equid simply grunted a terse greeting, snorted at Cael, and went to lean on the wall outside the room they'd just escaped.

_Of course, _Trygve thought. _Halassie's put most of his crew ashore, and they know they're to guard that room, but they don't know for what purpose. _

Cael was tentatively groping her buttocks, although his heart wasn't in it, and Trygve batted his hand away. "Come on, they don't recognise you. I doubt anyone will, except for Waldrein Burr, and Halassie's contacts. If you see a minotaur and a roe buck, hide. Otherwise, I think you are free."

Cael slumped against Trygve. "This is... I can't... Thank you," he murmured, then fainted against her.

Trygve grumbled. The Equid up the hall flicked an ear and glanced at them.

"One too many ales, and several more orgasms than he has ever had," Trygve said lewdly.

The Equid chuckled, and produced a bottle. "Keep me company a while, won't ye lass? 'E's out fer the count! I'll keep ya goin' all night..."

"Hah! Half a pound an hour," Trygve propositioned, knowing it was a rate no one would pay.

"Pfft," the Equid retorted. "Y'ain't _that _good, lass."

"Your loss," Trygve lilted, hoisting Cael up under his arms and wrestling him out of the hallway.

Once out of sight of the Equid, who she now recognised as a crewman from _La Leviatán--_evidently they had not found Niko Halassie's body yet--Trygve shook Cael by the collar of his jerkin.

"Wake up, Cael. Wake _up, _you donkey!"

Cael's tongue lolled out of his mouth. He mumbled unintelligibly and hung like a ragdoll in Trygve's arms.

"Aye, 'e's 'avin' a night, hah!" came a rough, female voice from behind the Lupa woman.

She turned and saw a middle-aged Cervid woman dressed in flowing silks with her breasts on full display, evidently one of the Fig's denizens.

"You've no idea," Tryge growled.

"Oh you'd be surprised 'ow much I see, dearie. Not usual fer a strappin' young lad like 'im ta be overwhelmed, 'specially an Equid! Usually they's good fer at least a few rounds 'fore they 'ead off to dreamland. 'Ere, give 'im a quick sniff o' this, it'll bring 'im right round for ya!"

She rummaged around in her clothing and produced a little phial of liquid, which she offered to Trygve. The Lupa took it tentatively between two fingertips and uncorked it. The scent was ungodly, like river silt and an unwashed sailor's undergarments, and Trygve recognised it as particularly concentrated pheromones, presumably of the Equid variety.

"Gets even the most aged of priests up and at 'em, if ya take my meaning!" the Cervid woman said with a husky cackle. "Even though to us it does smell like a sewer at low tide."

"Aye, I hear you," Trygve said.

She passed the phial under Cael's nose a few times. Nothing happened.

"Gotta dab it on 'is nose, dearie."

"My thanks. But I should rather prefer not to get it on my hands. I seem to have enough trouble with stallions seeking my company as it is."

The Cervid woman raised her brows and looked Trygve up and down. "That so? Dab it on 'is finger then, 'stead o' yours, an' then swipe it on 'is nose."

It was a good suggestion. Trygve did so, then hurriedly recorked the phial and handed it back to the Cervid woman.

Cael took a breath. His nostrils flared hard, and he surged awake, whinnying loudly and casting his eyes around wildly.

"Hey! Hey hey hey, easy there. Calmly, Cael. It is only me, it's alright."

The Cervid woman tucked the phial back whence it had come, and Trygve thanked her. She cackled quietly and sauntered off, taking her pendulous breasts with her.

Cael trembled and shook and snorted and pawed at his face. "Wh... what did you do?!"

"Why, is it unpleasant?" Trygve chuckled. "Pheromones. You passed out, and you need to remain lucid. Although I think that might have pushed you a little too far in the other direction, judging from the state of your trousers."

Cael whinnied and covered himself with both hands. "Pheromones?! Whose pheromones? Arahan's robes, I feel... I feel dirty..."

Trygve's lips quirked upward and she ruffled the Equid's mane. "My apologies. I did not have time to ask whether she had _stallion _pheromones available. I presume what you're smelling comes from a mare. Probably some flea-bitten apothecary up in the Harrows."

Cael's ears flicked backward.

"Don't worry so much, Cael. I don't give two rats' arses if you prefer men. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Especially not in this place. Here..." Trygve unwrapped the binding from one of the Equid's hands and wadded it up, then used the fabric to scrub the pheromone from his muzzle. "Better?"

Cael sniffed experimentally, groaned, and hunched around his hands. "Not really."

"Well, it's the best I can do! Would you stop hiding it like that? You act like I've never seen a man with two legs down one half of his trousers. Now come on! It'll go down once you start walking, and I need to get you downstairs to my companion."

Cael busied himself unwrapping his other hand while Trygve led him through the hallways of the Hairy Fig, and into the communal bathhouse. She swiped a wet cloth from the edge of one of the baths, and paused to wash Cael's face properly. Then she tossed it back into the water. That helped, finally, and by the time they reached the stone arch that led through to the taproom, Cael was walking at least mostly normally.

The twin elk brothers Trygve and Magpie had found in the Market Square were standing on a table, playing a series of ballads and folk jigs on bellow-pipes and flute, accompanied by Magpie with his lute. It was an astonishing sound that took Trygve by surprise. Especially when one of the brothers, playing the bellow-pipes and whose long hair was tied back with a strip of black silk, opened his mouth and began to sing. His voice--albeit Aethyrically enhanced, Trygve suspected--was a clear and piercing tenor with a very pleasing husky growl behind it, that would be perfectly suited to the kinds of Sabarinian ballads Trygve was most fond of. That he could play and sing at the same time was impressive, especially for a self-trained musician. They had chosen well... even if he and his flamboyant twin came as a package deal.

She made eye contact with Magpie, and the Aethyrborn dragon beckoned her over. She guided Cael in front of her, and waited until the twins had stopped playing before moving in to speak. As the song drew to a close, Kristian, the flamboyant twin, took his leave and headed towards the bar, while Dieter remained behind, although he was out of earshot of their conversation.

"Trygve, what news?" Magpie asked her, peering inquisitively at Cael.

Trygve took a deep breath.

"Niko Halassie is dead," she began. "The Voidstones are gone. Waldrein Burr at the docks told me Halassie's contacts would be here to collect them in the morning, but he lied. They came early. Cael here was Waldrein's courier. He was roughed up and threatened with death if he did not remain in his room until dawn to throw us off the trail. We've passed several of Halassie's crew since we came out of Cael's room and none recognised him, so he is no immediate danger to us or himself. The Voidstones were taken by a minotaur and a roe buck who spoke Sabarinian, but that is all the information we know. They have a six hour head start."

Magpie considered this carefully. While he could have read her mind for that information, often it was more coherent when spoken aloud. However, there were details missing.

"And in the process, you met someone who you believe is an ally and a lead? Or is she merely a love interest?"

_Dagmar. _The word rose in Magpie's mind as much as in Trygve's.

Trygve bared her teeth. "A little of both, if you must know."

"She waits for you in the far corner of the taproom. She has not been here long."

Trygve's heart fluttered.

Kristian returned from the bar with a small amphora of Athonian wine, singing lustily about the matriarchal Lupa harems of Zeiram, and Trygve glared at him.

"Go, go, Trygve my dear, go to her," Magpie urged, slipping an arm around Cael's skinny shoulders. "Cael? My name is Magpie, and I am a friend. Come, join us. You are safe. This is Dieter, and his brother Kristian - they are new to our little group, as well."

Cael meekly greeted the twins, and flushed brightly when, as opposed to Dieter's gruff handshake, Kristian raised the Equid's hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles.

"You're in good company, Cael," Trygve said. "Do try not to frighten him off, Kristian? He may be important to us."

"Aye aye, captain!" Kristian replied with a mocking salute. "Cael! Come and sit on my lap and tell me all about your day..."

"Amel's tits..." Trygve growled quietly.

Then she turned her back on the group, and began seeking out Dagmar.

*

Trygve & Dagmar

Dagmar had just drained her third goblet of wine when she saw her. Like a rock in an ocean, Trygve stood still as a statue, staring directly at the dragoness through the milling crowds of patrons. Dagmar's heart skipped and she rose to her feet--not that it made much difference, since she was less than five feet tall. So, she clambered onto the bench she'd been sitting on, to peer across the taproom at Trygve. Their eyes met and locked for a long moment, and then Trygve turned and moved purposefully toward the stone arch that led to the bathhouse. That was a signal if ever there was one.

Dagmar leapt down from the bench and, as an afterthought, grabbed the amphora of wine.

She lost sight of Trygve immediately, but saw the dark shadow of her through the dense steam that filled the bathhouse when she entered. She threaded her way between the baths and the ephemeral privacy screens between them. Trygve had paused at the far end, seemingly waiting for her. Dagmar hurried forward, and the Lupa woman melted into the shadows once again.

_She's teasing me, _Dagmar thought, feeling dampness in her leggings at the mere thought of where the Lupa woman might be taking her.

A tiny, barely discernible clawmark had been scratched into a wooden doorframe, angled upward.

_Upstairs, _it said to Dagmar.

Moments later she was confronted by a steep, narrow stairway, with carpet on its treads. Each step bore four tiny indentations in an identical pattern. They were clawprints from a Lupa paw. Almost every other patron Dagmar had seen was an ungulate, and almost all wore the soft leather hoof-scuffs that were a condition of entry to the Hairy Fig for hooved peoples, to avoid damaging the flooring and furniture.

The clawprints led up the stairs, and Dagmar followed. The stairs opened onto a passageway with doors down one wall, structural archways every few yards, and lattice windows set into the opposite wall overlooking the canal below. Of Trygve there was no sign, but outside the fifth door sat a very alert Equid sailor. He eyeballed Dagmar silently as she passed, as if he recognised her but could not quite place her in his memory.

At the end of the passageway was a spiralling stairway made of stone and timber, leading both up and down. Dagmar knew from experience that _down _would take her to parts of the Hairy Fig she did not have access to, so she assumed Trygve had gone up again. Up into the harem tower...

Dagmar's heart raced. She breathed in deeply through her nose and caught the faintest scent of wolf, which she recognised from their meeting aboard _La Leviatán _earlier in the evening. Then, it had been a slight tang of sweat overlaid with leather and fur, but now it had a distinctly warmer undertone. Arousal.

Dagmar climbed steadily up the spiral stairs. She could hear voices from above, and someone playing a shawm, its reedy note mingling with laughter and heavy breathing. She lost the scent of Trygve in the cloud of incense and an intensely sexual musk that greeted her at the first landing she arrived at, oozing like a hedonistic syrup from each of several curtained archways that surrounded a central landing. Each archway led to a themed harem space, dedicated to a patron deity with a carved insignia above the entrance. Dytaea's Harem, Dagmar knew, would be predominantly dedicated to males. Kasdall's Shrine and Mido's Bosom were spaces for men and women to come together. She considered the Midoan archway, and tentatively sniffed the air for any trace of Trygve, without success. Then she approached the fourth archway, the most elaborate of all. Lakesh was the patron goddess of courtesans and sex workers, after all, in addition to being the goddess of the sea, and the patron goddess of sapphic lovers.

Dagmar paused in the doorway of Lakesh's Enclave. The sounds from within were decidedly feminine. She parted the amber-woven gauze curtains and poked her head inside.

"Aye? Come in, come in, lassie. Are ye shy? Ne'er been wi' a woman afore?"

A hand grappled with Dagmar's jerkin, and hauled her in beyond the curtain. There, the dragoness was confronted by a heavyset Equid woman, naked but for an elaborate garment of translucent silk which quite deliberately left all of her sensitive parts completely exposed.

"By Lakesh's tits, ye're a pretty thing! I'll be gentle wi' ye, don't ye worry..." the woman said.

"I am not here to be groped by a stranger with her cunt hanging out," Dagmar said with a curl of her lip. "I don't know where you've been! I am searching for a Lupa woman. Tall. Dark fur. Did she come past?"

The Equid woman scowled, and gave a defeated sigh. "Aye, she did at that, not three minutes past. She's down back, in one o' the booths. Off wi' ye!"

Dagmar could not suppress a grin. She extricated herself from the Equid woman and gingerly picked her way through the Enclave, past heaps of cushions on which lounged groups of women. Many watched her pass with undisguised interest. Everywhere she went, Dagmar stood out; it was part of the reason she preferred a life at sea, and to keep to the shadows as much as possible when ashore. A dragon outside of Tahamasset was a rarity indeed.

At the far end of the Enclave were a row of smaller, private booths. A burly Urssa woman stood before them, and flashed Dagmar a cheeky smirk as she approached.

"Your Lupa friend is a fiery one. I hope you're prepared," she said, stepping aside with an elaborate bow. "Fourth and final booth, on your left."

"My thanks," Dagmar muttered, her ears burning.

The moment Dagmar stepped past the Urssa woman, she saw Trygve. The Lupa woman was leaning in the doorway of the fourth booth, her jerkin and tunic open to the navel, her breasts exposed, and her amber eyes glinting in the greenish lamplight. Unclothed, Dagmar could see that Trygve's fur was not uniformly dark; a bright white blaze which began at her collarbones ran downward along her torso, to disappear beneath the high waistline of her trousers. Dagmar's heart raced as their eyes met.

*

Trygve needed to keep the dragoness interested. They were both women of the shadows, in their own ways, and such minds can pick up on signals far more subtle than regular folks can discern. Once she had the dragoness' attention, Trygve paused only for long enough to give Dagmar tantalising glimpses or scents of her. Enough to lead her on, little more. And, momentarily, to steal another wet cloth from the bathhouse to hurriedly wash her hands and face.

She led Dagmar up the same stairs down which she'd wrangled Cael only a short time previously, with nothing more than clawmarks left in the carpet. Almost every other patron was an ungulate wearing the same leather hoof-scuffs, so the tiny indents left by Trygve's claws would be enough of a message for Dagmar. She paused in a deep pool of shadow for just long enough to catch a glimpse of the little dragon's auburn hair at the base of the stairs before moving on. She walked right past the room she and Cael had exited, and past the one Cael was meant to still be in. The Equid sailor, who she now knew to be one of Halassie's crew, was still there, sitting on a stool and whittling a piece of wood with his table dagger. He leered at her as she walked past, and without missing a step, Trygve drew her crossbow and aimed it at his heart. He dropped his dagger and held up his hands in defeat.

She stalked on through the passageway to the spiral stairway at its end, which led upward to the harem rooms and their more private booths--her destination. Trygve paused for just long enough to leave a rather intimate scent mark at the base of the spiral stairway; which was little more than a quick hand down the front of her trousers, deposited on the wall. She grimaced at her slickness. Why did the very thought of Dagmar turn her on so much?

Trygve considered that as she climbed. Was her interest in Dagmar taboo? There was no judgement in this part of the world for two men, or two women in a relationship. Marriage between two or more partners of the same sex was relatively common, although not within the Arahanic churches that had dominated the spiritual landscape since the Crusades. Which was a point of irony, since the Prophet Arahan himself was, it was claimed, fond of men.

Trygve did not lead Dagmar to the highest rooms. That would perhaps have implied to the dragoness that she did not wish their meeting to be known by anyone, and that was not true. The privacy she sought had more to do with their ambitions beyond mutual pleasure; both of them had a mission in this life, and both had to be careful about making connections that might be leveraged against them by enemies.

So, Trygve approached Lakesh's Enclave. She stood out in the harem room for the simple fact that she was fully clothed in a jerkin, chemise, tight leggings and cloak, but she did not have time nor inclination to alter that.

Trygve collared an Equid woman inside the harem, who was riding the face of another.

"A dragon is following me," she stated.

The Equid woman's eyelids fluttered and she ground lewdly onto her partner's muzzle. "Oh aye? Whas 'er tongue like? An' whas it worth to ye fer me not to poach 'er?"

"You're not her type," Trygve chuckled. "If she asks, please send her my way."

"Show me yer tits," the Equid woman commanded. "Else I shan't."

Trygve opened her jerkin and untied the lacings of her chemise, and the Equid woman reached inside to unwrap the linen bindings from around the Lupa woman's chest.

"Lakesh's clit, ye keep em hidden!" she commented.

"Aye, well usually it is men who want them, and they give up far more easily than women do," Trygve said.

She tugged the linen bindings out, and exhaled in relief as the pressure around her chest was released, revealing her modest bust. The Equid woman whickered in appreciation and cupped Trygve's breasts in her large hands, squeezing gently with her hoof-tipped fingers, and ground her hips lewdly onto her partner's tongue. Then her hands wandered downward towards Trygve's hips.

Trygve stopped her. "My underside is off-limits to you. My nectar is Dagmar's to savour," Trygve said with the greatest suggestiveness she could muster.

The Equid's nostrils flared, but she capitulated. "Aye, aye, she's a lucky lass then. I'll send 'er yer way when I sees 'er."

"My thanks," Trygve said, and took her leave.

The Lupa woman paid a couple of silver pennies to the Urssa woman who stood outside the private booths, and made her way to the last of the tiny rooms to wait for Dagmar to arrive. She did not have long to wait.

The dragoness was slightly dishevelled and breathless when she appeared in Trygve's sight, as the wolfess was leaning on the doorway of the booth she had hired for them. In her hand was a small wine amphora, and Trygve took in her choice of clothing with appreciation. They would be a pleasure to remove, she decided.

"Took your time," Trygve quipped, the shadow of a smile tweaking the corners of her lips. Then she stepped back into the booth.

*

Dagmar nearly tripped over her own claws in her haste to join the Lupa woman. She pushed through the gauze curtain, and kicked the solid wooden door shut behind her. Silence enveloped the two women, and the tension between them was palpable; a dense, anticipatory eroticism that set Dagmar's tail quivering. The warmth between Dagmar's thighs bloomed into a heavy, throbbing heat. Trygve's scent was thick in the air of the tiny booth, rising from her like incense smoke. Trygve reached out and took the wine amphora from Dagmar's hand. Their fingers touched, and Trygve took a drink from it and set it down beside her crossbow on a small table set beneath the window, which overlooked the canal outside.

"I thought that this place required that all weapons are surrendered at the door," Dagmar said, picking up the amphora to take a long drink.

"I did not enter through the front door," Trygve said with a smirk.

"Nor did I," Dagmar replied, drawing her dagger from within the sash around her waist and depositing it alongside Trygve's crossbow.

The two women shared a breathless laugh, and then Trygve took a step forward. Dagmar stepped in to meet her, tilting her head back to maintain eye contact with the much taller, significantly older Lupa woman, and felt the wolf's hands on her waist. Her heart raced, and she pressed in close, bringing their bodies together, Trygve's bare breasts at the level of Dagmar's muzzle. Fur caressed the dragoness' lips, and she exhaled shakily.

"I have been fantasising of this moment all day," Trygve commented huskily into Dagmar's ear. "I am glad you came."

"As have I," Dagmar responded. "And I haven't come yet."

Trygve growled lustfully and slid her hands down from Dagmar's hips to her buttocks, kneading the soft, linen-clad globes of flesh needily and hauling the dragoness off her booted claws. She responded by looping her arms around the wolfess' neck. Trygve abruptly grunted and grimaced in pain, and Dagmar dropped back to her feet.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt?" the dragoness said.

"Aye, I seem to have injured my shoulder. My apologies."

"How..."

"Waldrein Burr's little runner. He uh... he was going to fall from the gutter outside, I had to catch him."

Dagmar winced, and gently probed the Lupa woman's shoulder. "Hm. It doesn't seem dislocated."

"No, it isn't. Might need you to be on top, though," Trygve grinned.

Dagmar growled in lust. Their muzzles came together in a kiss that was at first tentative, but quickly heated up into a passionate, urgent embrace of lips and tongues and elevated breaths. Dagmar raised one leg and wrapped it around Trygve's slender hip, and the wolfess' grip on Dagmar's backside became more erotic, reaching beneath her to drag a clawtip along the crotch seam of her leggings, along the cleft of her buttocks and along the underside of the dragoness' thick, muscular tail, to the extent of her leggings' coverage along it.

Dagmar quivered and ground forward against that touch, raking her claws up the back of Trygve's neck to tangle in her auburn hair, while her other hand snaked within Trygve's open chemise to palm across her breast, and then around to the small of the wolf's back.

Then Dagmar pressed Trygve backward onto the nest of cushions behind her. The wolfess yelped in surprise, but her shock was quickly availed by Dagmar landing atop her, pressing her knee firmly into Trygve's groin and deepening their kiss. Trygve moaned quietly and ground onto the dragon's thigh, and Dagmar felt the wolf's hands fumbling with the sash around her waist. It came off first, followed by Dagmar's jerkin. Then Trygve untucked her chemise. Dagmar took hold of Trygve's wrist and raised her hand to her face. A grin suddenly split the dragoness' muzzle, and she cackled in glee.

"What's captured your attention so?" Trygve asked.

"Your claws," Dagmar replied.

On Trygve's right hand, the first two of her claws were filed blunt.

"Aye, it's to more effectively use my crossbow."

"Oh, I see," Dagmar said teasingly. She held up her own hand alongside the wolf's, showing that her own claws were filed blunt on the same fingers. "For me, it's so I can masturbate without injury."

Trygve's nostrils flared and her ears flattened back against her skull, but then she grinned. "Aye, that's the truth of it. Is that a regular occurrence for such a horny little dragon as you?"

"When no one else is doing it for me? Every opportunity I get..." Dagmar smirked.

She once again took Trygve's wrist, to press the wolf's fingertips beneath the waistband of her leggings. Trygve's eyes stared into Dagmar's. It was obvious what was coming next. The wolf bit her lip and pressed her hand inward. Dagmar's skin was the texture of crushed velvet; perfectly smooth in one direction, but rough and raspy in the other. The near total absence of fur was fascinating to Trygve, who had never experienced such a thing before.

As her fingers wandered further into the humid, warm confines of Dagmar's fine linen leggings, though, they encountered a dense nest of downy fur. Trygve grinned.

"I was wondering," she said, "whether you were bare of fur all over..."

"Now you know," Dagmar replied, and rolled her hips upward slightly to press upward against Trygve's fingers.

The wolf continued her journey, fingers parting fine fur, and encountered wetness. The skin beneath the fur gave way to a subtle cleft, and Trygve's fingers skilfully parted to divert along Dagmar's labia, teasing her, until she could cup the entirety of Dagmar's womanhood in her palm and press upward against it.

Dagmar gave a husky growl and ground into Trygve's palm, and the wolfess ground the heel of her palm across the dragon's vulva.

"You're so wet, already," Trygve commented breathlessly, allowing her blunt-clawed fingertips to tenderly explore between the dragon's lips, and upward over her swollen, erect clitoris.

She ground heavily up onto Dagmar's thigh in a rush of excitement, and grappled for the dragon's hand. Dagmar read her intention, and slid her palm down the silky fur of Trygve's abdomen. The wolfess released the catch on her belt, allowing it to fall open and loosen the waistband of her tight leggings, and Dagmar's hand slid within. She withdrew her knee from Trygve's groin, and the wolfess gasped in pleasure when Dagmar's fingertips found her nectar-soaked, protruding labia minora.

"Not as wet as you, wolf," Dagmar murmured. "Ye gods..."

She withdrew her hand from Trygve's leggings and performatively licked her fingers, and felt Trygve's hand curl inward to press a fingertip to her entrance. Dagmar rolled her hips and arched her tail, and felt Trygve's finger, and then a second, sink into her. She clenched and relaxed, and pressed onto the wolf's digits with an open-mouthed gasp and moan of ecstasy. Fluid spilled from her over Trygve's knuckles inside her leggings, and she bucked and ground and moved against the wolf's skilled touch. Trygve ground her palm across Dagmar's clitoris, a rhythmic side to side motion, and within moments Dagmar was teetering on the brink of orgasm. The wolf raised her free hand to caress Dagmar's unbound breasts through the light fabric of her chemise, and teased a clawtip around an erect nipple.

That was all it took.

Dagmar convulsed and trembled and bucked and twitched, and Trygve felt the rhythmic contractions of her orgasm around her fingers.

In a sudden rush of excitement and a flurry of urgent activity, both women divested each other of their clothing amongst heated groping, stroking, petting and kissing, their bodies writhing and grinding together in a rising crescendo of shared heat and arousal, until both were naked in the tiny booth, sweaty and breathless.

"Now you've come," Trygve quipped, and Dagmar laughed.

"Aye, that was... unexpected. You are good with your hands."

The two women shared a long moment of mutual admiration of the other's nudity, fingertips trailing over fur and skin.

"Wait until you feel what I can do with the rest of me..." Trygve said suddenly. "Turn around over me. I need my heat quenched and wish to taste you at the same time. My cunt _aches _to feel your tongue on it..."

Dagmar snarled in lust, her whole body tense and quivering with arousal, and complied easily with Trygve's instruction. She swung a leg carefully over the wolf's body and backed up over her, presenting herself to Trygve in a way she would never feel comfortable doing for a man. Trygve and Dagmar's height difference was perfectly suited for this position. The wolfess' tail wagged against the cushions beneath her, and Dagmar slid her hands beneath the wolf's buttocks, lifting her hips like a sacred chalice to meet her lips. Tender nuzzles and soft kisses quickly escalated, as subtle body worship turned into a concerted effort to make the wolfess howl, with fingers buried inside her burning core and her tongue playing across her clitoral hood.

Trygve, meanwhile, was staring with unabashed lust and desire at Dagmar's backside. Her densely furred crotch was soaked with her own fluids, and Trygve pressed her muzzle eagerly upward into it, her hot, slick tongue lapping against heated flesh and filling her lungs with the dragoness' most intimate scents. The thick, muscular root of Dagmar's tail seemed to be a particularly erogenous zone, and once she had discovered as such, Trygve paid it special attention. It was like a third thigh, she decided; similarly erotic to caress, but even more intimate.

Trygve rolled and ground her hips against Dagmar's attentions, and found herself quickly approaching orgasm. The dragoness maintained her cadence, even when Trygve's hand landed on the back of her head, pushing her face roughly into her crotch. Dagmar retaliated by shoving herself with equal urgency back onto Trygve, and was rewarded by the sensation of the wolfess' tongue pressing inside her. Dagmar found enough freedom of movement to wriggle a hand beneath herself to masturbate over Trygve's face, tugging and stroking the hood over her engorged, erect clitoris like a foreskin.

When their respective orgasms peaked, both women reached their climax at almost exactly the same moment. What followed was a solid minute of desperate humping, urgent grinding, breathless moaning, convulsive writhing and splattering fluids, which slowly ebbed into a sweaty, sticky mess of limbs and fur.

*

Magpie

Kristian had been flirting with Cael mercilessly all evening. He was slightly drunk, which did not help his already somewhat questionable inhibitions. Magpie observed this with amusement, but with a thought always in his mind to intervene if it looked as if the young Equid was becoming overwhelmed. However, the reality seemed to be quite the opposite. Cael was fluttering his eyelashes at the elk and seemed besotted with him.

In equal measure, Kristian's brother Dieter seemed to be the object of attention for Rhell, the Caprin woman who had guided the twins to Magpie at the start of the evening.

That was just Magpie's talent, it seemed. He'd been present for the coming together of no less than _three _couples of varying alignments and orientations, none of whom would have crossed paths if not for his involvement. He sighed and played a few notes on his lute in amongst the increasingly flirtatious quartet that surrounded him in the taproom. He knew of his romantic influence over people, but occasionally it rankled him. He knew he could have anyone in the taproom in his arms in minutes if he wished. But using his Aethyrborn powers to seduce seemed like cheating. Momentarily he reached out an Aethyric tendril in Trygve's direction and was met by a flood of endorphins that almost caused him to embarrass himself. _Well, they're having a time, _he thought, a smile tugging the corners of his lips.

Returning to his own mind, Magpie composed himself and focused on what Trygve had told him of the Voidstones, and of Cael's involvement in their quest. There were more important things for Magpie to consider than the distribution of bodily fluids with a partner.

Trygve had said that the cache of Voidstones that had arrived aboard _La Leviatán _had been intended to be collected by a contact the following morning. That was what had been openly discussed. That Niko Halassie's contact had come early--evidently with the collaboration of Waldrein Burr at the docks--implied not only that they were all aware of the smuggling that was going on, but that they also knew they were being pursued and were actively laying false trails.

Magpie had been following this cache of Voidstones around the Mare Internum for over a year. Each time it changed hands, the waters became muddier. There was no clear destination, nor any clear origin any longer. What was clear was that all involved knew something of the artefacts' importance and potential power--for good or for ill.

The whole scheme--the attraction to an artefact of the Sundering, the involvement of smugglers and slavers, the deceit and sleight of hand, the abject lack of an accountable person--all stank of the Arahanic church, to Magpie. Those Arahanites high in the church's hierarchy would never risk anything of this sort being traced back to them. They were masters of corruption, even as they pulled any number of puppet strings and seemed to have an endless stream of gold to pay even the most expensive of hired thug to carry out their will. What exactly the Arahanites would _do _with a cache of Voidstones was beyond Magpie, although he knew it would be nothing good.

Voidstones were lethal, to one such as Magpie. To an Aethyrborn. To even directly observe a single stone would be excruciatingly painful to him, but to be exposed to a collection of hundreds? He would not survive. For each Voidstone was a ravenous rift in the Aethyr, which sucked the energies out of an Aethyric soul. And that was precisely how they had been used, during the Crusades.

Countless Aethyrborn had been killed during the Sundering; a period of intense religious expansionism by the Arahanites as they spread their new 'faith' across Valasea, Doregal and northern Ambriel. They had discovered that exposing a corporeal, physically manifested Aethyrborn to a Voidstone steeped the blood of the faithful of the Aethyrborn's patron deity would rend the Aethyrborn's soul asunder, trapping it within the artefact for all time and trapping the Aethyrborn in their mortal flesh, powerless and as weak as any mortal.

Most of the Aethyrborn who had survived the Sundering ritual had died shortly thereafter of exposure, starvation or grief. Those who survived did so as mortals. Upon their deaths, their shattered souls were passed through the amphora of Aktis, the Keeper of Souls, to be reborn wiped clean of their memories of any previous incarnation. They were, to all intents and purposes, erased from history.

Magpie and the few Aethyrborn he still knew to have survived intact, did so by not appearing in their physical bodies for the duration of the Crusades. Most swore never to walk the surface of Asantrea ever again, and withdrew into themselves, never to interact with their world again.

Magpie portrayed himself not as an Aethyrborn, but as a mere mortal Aethyrsmith; a common enough profession, particularly for one with the appearance of a Tahamassetian dragon. Even so, he was often reviled by the more regressive regions he travelled through, both as a manipulator of Aethyr and as a dragon. His persona, his adopted appearance as a travelling musician was a front to win hearts and minds, and to distract from his real purpose.

"Magpie? Magpie!"

The dragon was shaken from his dark reverie back into the present by Cael, the Aethyrfiodh pony, shaking him by the shoulder with an expression of concern on his equine muzzle.

"Hm? My apologies, lad, I was miles away! What troubles you?"

"We need to go. I just saw Waldrein Burr enter the building."

"The customs officer?"

"Y-yes. He and I are... uh... known to one another. He could recognise me, and I am meant to be upstairs in the room still."

"That is vexing. I do hope he has not come to check on you specifically. Or worse."

"I fear it may be 'worse.' He has several large men with him."

"Then you are correct, we should be gone from this place. Rhell, may I impose upon you for the evening?" Magpie said, turning to the markhor woman, who seemed slightly off-put by the sudden need to stop feeling up Dieter.

"Aye, that you may, little bird. Come, enter my tunnel!"

Dieter spluttered.

"Not _that _tunnel! Maybe later. If you're lucky. No, no, I mean there is an escape tunnel beneath the quarters of a friend of mine across the canal, which leads to a safe place. Come! _Dieter! _Leave that alone! Not _that _sort of 'come!'"

Dieter sagged drunkenly with a lecherous grin across his muzzle, and with a degree of awkwardness, the five of them beat a hasty retreat from the Hairy Fig's taproom, across the canal bridge bawdyhouse to the far side, where the quarters of the indentured courtesans were built into the canal's embankment.

As they walked, Magpie sent a subtle _danger _signal to Trygve through their psychic link, and flashed her an image of Waldrein Burr. That would be enough. She would heed the message and both she and Dagmar would melt into the shadows like they had never been there. Magpie was not worried for her safety.

"Lukyan? Lukyan, it is Rhell. Let us in, please, I need to use your tunnel," Rhell whispered hoarsely at a tiny, dishevelled looking doorway halfway along a covered alleyway beneath the street on the far side of the canal.

Moments later, the door opened inward to reveal a tall, elegant Lupa man, who seemed to recognise Kristian immediately, as well as Rhell.

"My thanks, Lukyan. I apologise if we woke you up, but something is a-hoof and I need to get these good folks out of the Fig to safety. They run a risk of being killed otherwise."

"It is... no trouble, none at all," Lukyan murmured thickly, staring intently at Kristian. "I presume it is not my place to know the nature of their escape or the trouble they are in?"

"You would be correct, my friend, I apologise; the less you know, the better," Magpie interjected. "Please, we must hurry."

Rhell and Kristian worked quickly to move Lukyan's bed from one side of the narrow room to the other, revealing a dusty trap-door beneath. It was solidly locked, and looked like little more than a well-disguised strongbox or storage compartment which had been disused for many years. Rhell opened the lock not with a key, but with an incantation of Aethyr. Magpie blinked in surprise several times, and flared his nostrils.

"That is Vianian Aethyr, Rhell," he commented in a near silent whisper.

"Aye, it is. Now get your scaley little arse into the tunnel and don't ask questions you do not need to hear the answer to."

Magpie, and then Cael, and then Dieter and Kristian, and finally Rhell, clambered down a narrow wooden ladder into the darkness of the tunnel. It was damp and musty within, and the steady drip of canal water leaking through the stonework gave it a decidedly dungeon-like feel.

Rhell whispered a few words from within the tunnel, sealing the lock once again such that none could access it, unless they knew the same language of Aethyr as she did. The scrape and grunt of Lukyan moving his bed back over the trapdoor followed, and Rhell turned to her new charges. Magpie struck a tiny Aethyric light from his claws, which manifested as a tiny globe of intensely bright green light suspended within his upheld palm. Dieter, Kristian and Cael, none of whom had ever seen real Aethyr in use so nonchalantly before, gace a collective gasp.

"Aye," Magpie said seriously, his usual eccentric and demure demeanour gone, replaced by a silvery charisma and a steely edge. "Now you know more about me than you did before. And perhaps this is a hint as to the importance of why you are here. Now come with me. Rhell has a house across town which is about as secure as any place in Stillwater Cove at this time. There is no chance we will be located there. We have plans to make."

#