FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 1

Supposedly, every ten years, the small village that Cayden and Mara were headed towards threw the wildest parties imaginable. Being in his early twenties, that was exactly what Cayden needed. The location was a little unusual, but Mara - a real vixen of a girlfriend, always active and even more extroverted than Cayden himself - had insisted. It was where she had grown up, after all, before moving to study abroad. Supposedly, the village, with a population that nobody has ever really measured but was assumed to be below a thousand individuals, really did go all in on their equinox celebrations. Once every ten years, anyway. That part had helped convince Cayden that it was worth it; otherwise, the next chance to see it would be ten years away.

He stretched his legs, trying to find a comfortable position in his seat. The plane felt like it took forever, as if he'd somehow been disconnected from time and space entirely, and was now stuck in uncomfortable budget seat purgatory. It was bad for everyone, but Cayden was a wolf. He was a fair bit bigger than the average small critter who took these flights.

Buried somewhere deep in the warm countryside of Central America, Mara had told him that the village wasn't exactly on most maps. The government knew it existed, but the deal they had was that while they received taxes from it, it was left to be self-governing. It was the only sensible solution; should they want more direct control, the government had to fly a helicopter all the way to middle of nowhere and hope that the landing spot hadn't been covered by the fast-growing jungle weeds yet. That lent it a certain forbidden charm, as well. The same kind of motivation that made people want to see anything hidden of secret.

Mara had that glint in her eye the whole way there. The endless boredom of the plane ride didn't seem to affect her in the slightest, the fox evidently absorbed in her own thoughts, as if she was planning something. Maybe she was. It couldn't be easy to return to a town like this after ten years. Even for a rural blank spot on a map, things could change massively in that amount of time. With no way to contact them - the village had no electricity, nor telephones beyond one communal emergency satellite phone, for which the government sometimes brought batteries - Mara couldn't even know if her parents were alive.

That was the way the villagers lived, though. Their traditions had remained the same for hundreds of years, dodging even the tumultuous civil war that raged across the country. Thus, it remained as a time capsule of sorts, visited only by the most extreme of adventure-seekers, and whoever its sons and daughters, half-estranged from living abroad, brought to share the festivals with.

Spores, Cayden recalled. That was what they called them. It was such a peculiar word to describe expats and emigrants, and even students who simply wanted to go to a high school or university. Not a bad word; every person, after all, carried with them a microcosm of their own culture, their traditions and habits, and from them, those aspects sometimes spread in a new country. The reason it stuck out to him was that people typically didn't take well to being compared to mushrooms, more than anything. Plants and flowers were a more common metaphor, he thought.

Then again, each culture had their own standards. That was what made visiting them so fascinating. Very few, if any at all, were inherently worse than the rest. Maybe mushrooms were just an important food source, or perhaps a religious tool, for the locals.

Accompanied by a bored-sounding announcement from the elderly captain - Cayden could almost_hear_ his walrus-like moustache flapping as he spoke - the plane began a final descent. They would land in the capital, where they'd take a train as deep into the jungles as it went, and then finally a helicopter to the village itself. A very long journey. Sometimes, Cayden wondered how Mara had even gotten out, but the fox remained demure, keeping her secrets to herself. It had to be difficult to plan any kind of journey out with how many steps it required, especially when the village had no electricity.

The thought alone was bewildering to Cayden, but also exciting. He pictured heated, frantic, outright tribal parties lit only by torches. Orgies illuminated by bonfires and fuelled by alcohol brewed from fermented jungle fruit, or even psychedelic mushrooms that nobody outside the village had ever heard of. Cayden was no stranger to hedonistic parties. He came from money, and his whole life had been spent bouncing between one feverish party or the other. The only thing his parents had ever required was that he finish college. He had, though even on the final exam he remembered nursing a horrible hangover. But the first year in college was when he'd met Mara.

The two had hit it off immediately. Though she had been guarded about her background, she had been very sexually open and downright wild in bed. The second party they went to, the vixen had ended up tying Cayden down to the host's bed and riding him until his cock was too sore to get hard anymore. She had appetites, certainly, a seemingly endless tolerance for alcohol, and an attitude so raw and unpolished that it could be best described as primal. Yet she had managed to pass college despite partying hard enough to ruin most men. That betrayed an intelligence beneath the glamorous exterior.

Indeed, though there was some - hopefully mutual - love and affection between them, Cayden and Mara's relationship was mostly based on the most basic of things: sex. Endless loud, passionate, enthusiastic sex, which the vixen seemed unable to get enough of, as if she fed on the very energy of the erotic. Feasted on it, even, and reflected that interest through every facet of her being, from her skimpy and provocative manner of dress to her body language that could, all by itself, get any receptive male hard and wanting.

Once the plane had landed, Cayden and Mara quickly made their way to the train. It took only minutes for the city to disappear behind them as the train chugged along its tracks, surrounded on both sides by dense jungle. This part of the continent was barely inhabited at all outside of urban centers, bar for theoretical uncontacted - or deliberately hiding - tribes of natives. Mara's home might've been classified as one as well, for how little contact they had with the outside world. It was amazing just how far from everything it really was.

If it wasn't for Mara, the wolf might've been a little worried. This far away from civilization, cultures were bound to be very different from his own. He imagined voodoo rituals, though quicky caught himself realizing that it wasn't the right continent for that. At least they liked parties, and that was what was important. What was life but the constant pursuit of pleasure and distractions? Jobs were for people who earned less than he did, and charity for idiots with nothing better to do.

Before he could get too lost in thought, Mara tapped his shoulder.

"We're almost there, I think," she grinned, her toothy smile looking predatory as always despite the softness of her other features. "God, it's been a while. I wonder if they even still remember me."

"I'm sure they do?" Cayden replied. "I mean, I hope they do. The place isn't very welcoming to strangers, is it?"

"During the equinox celebrations, it is. Or was, when I grew up there, at least. Of course, there are some benefits to being invited by one of their spores," Mara smiled, and her hand - which had been resting in Cayden's lap - squeezed his sheath roughly through the fabric for emphasis. "You know what I mean."

"But everyone gets to join the party, right?" Cayden asked, fighting back a groan as his cock swelled eagerly beneath Mara's cunning touch.

"Mhm. But for someone we invite there's more than just partying," she continued, kneading her partner's cock between two fingers. "You might say you get to play a much more important role than just that of a reveller."

The way she said it almost sounded menacing. Cayden trusted her, though. Sure, their relationship was all about sex with little in the way of other emotions, but that was just the way he liked it. He liked fucking, romance was a distant secondary concern, and she seemed to agree. Romance could develop later if it was meant to happen.

Just as he started getting close, the train slowed down. With a wink and a lopsided grin, Mara bounced up and left him hanging. It was time to get off, which meant he'd have to get off some other time, as much as it frustrated him.

The station where the train had pulled up was more akin to a former military base from the civil war, around which a village had grown after the war ended. It was a strange mixture of steel, concrete, and primitive architecture. Dirt roads and worn asphalt that the soldiers had once put down. The central feature was the helipad, where a tourism company did flights for both sightseeing and those who wanted to visit the truly isolated and insular parts of the country.

Cayden and Mara made their way through a crowd of children begging for money or treats, who all seemed to disappear the moment they stepped onto the company's territory, as if afraid. Cayden didn't pay it any mind; the owners probably threatened them on a regular basis.

Here, they were greeted by a tired-looking jaguar. He looked at Cayden, ignored him, and turned to Mara instead.

He asked her something, in a grim tone of voice accompanied by an aggravated-looking gesture, speaking a language that Cayden couldn't understand.

"I don't- I don't speak whatever that is," Cayden tried to interrupt, but the two ignored him entirely as they traded a few words. The jaguar sighed at whatever she told him.

He and Mara exchanged a few more words, the jaguar growing so angry that his claws extended, while Mara kept responding calmly with her trademark grin. And once again, the wolf understood nothing of what was said. He was quickly growing angry at being treated as if he didn't exist, and just as he prepared to speak up, the jaguar turned to face him.

"Has she told you anything about where you're going?" he asked, visibly trying to calm himself down. Mara hissed something behind him, only to be ignored in turn.

"Not really? Big party village is what we're going to," Cayden replied, but he had already turned back to Mara again.

"Rélajate,"** he told her. "I'm not going to tell him shit,** perra malvada, I know I owe you, but after this, never again."

The last two words he spoke in English, before taking a deep breath and calming himself down in spite of Mara's knowing, deliberately provocative grin, and whatever the vixen had actually told him.

"Right. One flight to that village, got it. I hope you know what you're getting into," he told Cayden. "That you're not biting off more than you can chew, as they say in English."

"What, you think they party too hard for me?" Cayden scoffed. The jaguar rolled his eyes.

"Youth. Always like this, I swear. Your funeral," he muttered before dismissing them both while he prepared the helicopter for another flight. It wouldn't, thankfully, take long.

"What was that all about?" Cayden asked Mara once the jaguar was busy.

"Oh, nothing. He's just very religious, doesn't like wild parties or premarital sex. Especially since we're not exactly believers in the same god as his," she explained, smiling broadly. "But he does owe me one, so he'll take us."

"Take us back, too, I hope. I don't really want to trudge back through the jungle with a hangover," Cayden commented.

"Yes, yes, of course," Mara grinned.

Chapter 2

The helicopter ride was short. For some reason, the chopper's windows were tinted, which meant that Cayden didn't really see which way they were headed. In a way, it made sense. If the village was easy to locate, it'd no doubt be quickly crowded by tourists and effectively ruined. He, at least, had the invitation of a native. That made him more legitimate, at least in his own mind.

They landed, and almost as soon as their feet touched the ground, the helicopter was already spinning up again, preparing for takeoff. Cayden and Mara ducked off the packed dirt patch that it'd touched down on, the feeling akin to just barely avoiding decapitation.

"What the hell is his problem?" Cayden shouted, loud enough to be heard over the deafening propeller noise.

"Like I said, he just doesn't approve of how we do things," Mara replied. They watched the pilot make the sign of the cross and then lift off. "Very religious, and of course, very wrong."

Soon after the chopper left, the villagers - a mixture of species, though most seemed to be small canines such as foxes, just like Mara was - approached with blank expressions that Cayden couldn't quite decipher. There was a touch of curiosity there, though also a hint of stern hostility. Before anyone could say anything, Mara raised her arm. She drew a symbol in the air; something like a crescent with a line through. The villagers immediately changed their attitudes. Warm and happy smiles replaced the suspicious expressions as they greeted Mara in another_language - neither Spanish nor English - that Cayden couldn't understand any of. She pointed at him, and spoke a single word. _Paymi.

The others nodded, and then turned towards Cayden.

"Welcome to the festival," a young maned wolf who looked a little like Mara despite being of a different species, greeted him, in unpracticed but passable English. "You will be our guest of honor."

"Guest of honor?" he asked. "I... I suppose I'm glad to hear that. I'm just here to party," he admitted.

"And party you will! We all will party. But it's in your honor that we-" the maned wolf began, trying to explain, before being shushed by Mara with a few additional words. She nodded before continuing. "That we drink and feast, of course."

There was something else going on. That much was obvious. What exactly the hidden level of this festival was, Cayden wasn't privy to. Perhaps it was just one of their strange religious activities, just like Mara had hinted at. He didn't much care, as long as they kept the booze flowing, and of course, some sex wouldn't hurt either.

The villagers guided them through the small settlement. There wasn't too much to see, except that everywhere was already decorated, painted in vivid hues of purple, red, and an almost phosphorescent white that seemed to glow in the light of the setting sun. In the middle of the village rose an enormous tree which seemed to barely cling to life, and around it, a ring of mushrooms. In a way, it was beautiful. Like natural décor to emphasize the pagan, far-from-civilization nature of the place. Unlike anything that'd even be allowed to exist in a modern city. For Mara and Cayden, a little hut was chosen, outwardly at least the most luxurious of them all - filled with soft blankets and pillows on the inside, in turn - and they were quickly served a small meal in preparation for the night's festivities.

It was almost like meat, Cayden figured. Not unpleasant, but also distinctly different. Almost _sinewy_in a way that only meat usually was, while dense and juicy at the same time.

"Mushrooms," Mara smiled. She ate slowly, appreciatively, savoring every bite. The taste made her eyelids flutter with enjoyment, or perhaps the contentedness of homesickness satisfied. "The village subsists primarily on this fungus. That's how we make our alcohol too. Mushroom wine," she laughed, raising a mug of dark, brothy liquid that did taste distinctly alcoholic.

"That's... exotic," Cayden replied. He glanced at the food. He'd never been the biggest enjoyer of mushrooms, but this stuff certainly wasn't bad. Just very unusual. "But hey, as long as it gets me drunk?"

"That it will, my single-minded prince," Mara smiled. "This first night, how about you explore on your own? Don't worry, none of them will cause you any trouble. I have some old friends to meet. Oh, and... feel free to indulge," she added with a melodic giggle.

A fair enough suggestion. Mara left, and soon after that, Cayden could hear music from outside; rhythmic drumming, some sort of stringed instrument, and beyond that, melodic moans. Mara had told him the parties got pretty wild during the equinox, and he was starting to feel a little buzzed from the wine. Despite the coppery aftertaste, it was certainly strong, loosening up the wolf's inhibitions.

He ventured outside with a slight wobble to his step and found himself facing a surprisingly active party. The village looked as if only a hundred or so people lived there. With how crowded the dirt streets were, it felt more like a thousand, now. Maybe visitors from neighboring communities came here, too, Cayden thought to himself, before he was distracted by far more interesting sights. Every reveler was naked, their bodies painted with the same eye-catching colors as the huts and fences, and being that he was a man with your average inclinations, Cayden's attention was immediately drawn by the women.

All of them, stark naked, their painted bodies bouncing, gyrating, and jiggling as they danced to the beat of the drums. Now this was Cayden's kind of party. He smiled to himself, taking a moment to watch the festivities before spotting the maned wolf he'd met earlier in the crowd. With legs like hers, she was impossible not_to notice. She returned his glance with a playful wink and gestured towards Cayden in a _come hither motion.

Thankfully, Mara didn't mind if he flirted with others. Or mated with them. She had always had a very liberal view of sex, and that was a cornerstone of their relationship.

Before he could actually approach the maned wolf, though, a pair of giggling, laughing coyotes almost crashed into him. They were both female - Cayden felt heir shapely curves pressed against him - maybe even sisters, or twins, and had clearly had a few more cups of mushroom wine than he.

"Qhawariy kay sumaq haywayta," one slurred, her hands instantly roaming all over his body. Normally, in any other circumstance, Cayden would've asked her to sober up first, but this was a_festival._ One clearly intended for wild sex and decisions that one would regret later.

The other had already wrapped her arms around him, exploring his firm, masculine body as if it was something altogether new, exotic, and desirable. "Wasiman pusasunchik," she murmured.

Cayden didn't understand a word, which was quickly becoming a trend here in the middle of nowhere, but their intentions transcended any language ever invented. One tugged him towards another of their painted dwellings, while the other was possessively, _hungrily_squeezing his ass as he walked, before that hand slipped around to his front. The moment they entered, one of them pushed Cayden over and straddled his chest before he could muster a protest.

Not that he would've really been able to say no to two coyotes this beautiful. They both moved with such sensuality, grace, and need, and almost instantly the other had unbuttoned Cayden's jeans to tug them off, baring his quickly swelling sheath. The other, sitting over his chest, smiled down at him as he moaned.

If only every city could be like this, Cayden thought. The lusty scent of the coyotes filled his nose and lungs, and soon he was throbbing hard already from the two sisters' - he decided to assume they were, given how similar they looked - attentions, panting with pleasure as a pair of skillful hands slipped along his hard cock, until suddenly he felt the other sister press herself against his muzzle. Around his muzzle. She all but impaled herself on his snout, coating his face with her juices. Cayden almost choked, but at the same time, feeling her clench around his muzzle felt incredibly intense.

The other coyote kept stroking his cock while her sister rode his muzzle in the most literal of ways, stretched to the absolute limit while her juices slowly drooled into Cayden's mouth. Yet, he couldn't breathe, and every time he moaned into the coyote's warm, wet body, he lost a little more oxygen, until he began to feel dizzy and weak, being rocked back and forth by the sisters. The other was grinding against his leg as she stroked him, but Cayden was barely aware of anything except the scent and taste of the first sister, and the hands teasing his cock ever closer to orgasm.

His fingers dug into the first sister's soft thighs, trying to push her off enough to draw at least on deep breath, but she insisted, only riding his muzzle more intently, already clenching eagerly as her wetness ran down his chin and neck. Lust drowned out the panic that he should've felt, and instead, Cayden groaned as he felt the familiar pressure of an impending orgasm build in his loins. His balls tightened, and then he felt a pair of warm lips engulf his tapered cockhead, inhaling his shaft into a wonderful warm suction that pushed him over the edge almost instantly.

He erupted in rich, warm, and thick spurts that filled the other coyote's mouth, and what she couldn't swallow quickly soaked her hands and his groin. In the throes of that pleasure, he forgot that he couldn't breathe entirely until little sparks were dancing across his vision, a final warning of his impending asphyxiation before- before-

Finally, the other coyote howled out with feminine satisfaction. She clenched, gushing, around Cayden's muzzle, utterly _soaking_him with her juices as she rode out her orgasm, trembling and bucking while the wolf slowly faded out beneath her. Only at the very last moment did the other sister finally pull her off with a growl, perhaps halfway through his climax.

"Mana chaynachu, sonso," she snarled at her. What she meant was obvious from her tone; her sister had gotten far too close to suffocating the wolf. A quick check revealed that he was, at least, still breathing, but only barely conscious. Of course, Cayden did also have a rather blissful smile on his face. Not the worst way to die, perhaps, for someone as fundamentally sexual as him, but nonetheless, when clarity began to reassert itself, he stirred awake in "his" own hut once again, his body clean and neat, and only the faintest smell of coyote lingering in his nostrils.

It felt almost like a dream. He remembered one of them had practically forced her pussy onto his muzzle, and from there the memories faded. The mushroom wine must've been stronger than he thought, and so he didn't protest in the slightest when that day's breakfast - before the orgy began again - was the same kind of pseudo-meat and wine. While it remained rather distasteful, and sat in Cayden's belly like a lump of stone to boot, the whole experience had left him in a somewhat hazy state. A perfect introduction, to be certain, to the kind of partying that they did here.

He'd just have to be a little more careful, and that night he'd hopefully have Mara with him. Mara, who was still snoozing next to him, after what must have been an even more eventful night. Rather than waking her up right away, though, Cayden decided to take a little walk around the village to clear his mind a little. The streets were almost completely empty this early in the morning, and there wasn't much to see. Except that enormous tree in the middle, again. He stopped to admire it and felt a chill run down his spine. There was something sublime about it. It towered before his drunken eyes like an ancient deity from more primitive times, eons old and perfect.

It seemed the villagers thought of it as such, too. Upon closer inspection, he could see old words and phrases carved into the bark. All in languages he wasn't familiar with, but beneath them, the ground was littered with coins - from all the surrounding cities, relatively nearby bastions of civilizations - and even crudely forged jewelry. They were offerings; that much was obvious even to Cayden's drunken mind. Yet, to what? The tree itself, or something that it represented, in its seemingly constant state of being consumed by mushrooms and mold while at the same time somehow growing. Maybe it was a symbol of rebirth, the wolf reasoned.

The longer he stayed there, the more a queer pressure of sorts began to grow in his head. He circled the tree, noticing that on the other side, a massive hollow - almost like chasm - yawned open, pitch-black and threatening. Looking into the darkness, the pressure grew until his head felt like it might explode. A primitive drumbeat echoed- no, he was hearing his own heart- a compulsion to... Cayden shook his head, trying to disregard the strange feeling. A compulsion to crawl into the darkness and lay down and rot and feed the earth and the people and consume and be consumed and rot and feed and-

Cayden took a step back, clutching his temples, his tail cramping down between his legs. The instant he did, the feeling indeed cleared up, fading rapidly into the morning light until it was a hazy dream-memory. The mold growing on the tree must've been releasing spores. A lot of them could cause hallucinations, he knew that much, even if the villagers seemed to mostly use the mushrooms for alcohol. He wasn't going to question it. Whatever tree the villagers worshipped was their own business, he was only here to enjoy their hospitality, booze, and of course the equinox festival... which seemed to involve a significant amount of hard, carnal sex.

Exactly his style. That brief unsettling experience (lay down and rot and feed and consume and be consumed) was quickly forgotten entirely as he got back into their hut and discovered Mara awake once more. She looked worn out, with her normally beautiful and well-kempt fur matted and tangled. She greeted Cayden tiredly.

"Looks like someone had an even wilder night than me," he noted. Mara shuddered and hunched over.

"It's been so long," the fox sighed. Just how long had she stayed up, and doing what? "I'm not used to this anymore."

Cayden knew better than to ask, but at the same time, he desperately wanted to know. He didn't exactly mind if Mara had sex with others, and so she had no reason to cheat on him, but at the same time, that only made him more curious. Most likely, she was simply participating in the festival in the way the other natives did, but from what he'd seen so far, that likely meant drunken orgies, and he wanted to be part of them, if so.

"But enough about my headache. How was your night, love?" she asked, her voice dripping with sugary concern.

Cayden shook his head. His vision threatened to spin out again with how much wine he'd had, already. "Strange. They... really love partying, don't they?" he replied. "And I'd love to have something else to drink than this wine."

"Water? During our greatest holiday?" Mara grinned. "There should be a central well here, still. But you should remain as drunk as possible."

That was a strange thing to say. Especially the way she said it, as if there would be _consequences_if he wasn't completely wasted constantly. "What do you mean?" he asked, despite practically feeling the well call his name.

Mara gave him a little tilt of her head. "Oh, the festivities are just more pleasant when one is a little numb," she explained, or improvised. Cayden wasn't quite sure.

Maybe it was a language barrier thing. Though Mara had lived abroad for a few years, there were still instances where she sounded mystifying or even intimidating when speaking English. Cayden didn't prod; as much as their relationship was purely sexual, he did trust her well enough.

Regardless, the wolf wished he'd brought a satellite phone of his own, just in case he had to call for rescue.

"How about that big creepy tree in the center of the village?" he asked. "Know anything about that? I think the people_worship_ it."

The vixen took a few measured moments to consider how she would reply. "Mm, the local legends say that a protector-deity lives in that tree," she finally answered, but it was an unsatisfying answer, as her voice was once again shaky, betraying that the answer was improvised, nor did it address the evidently hallucinogenic spores the tree was covered in. Then again, maybe that was why it was worshipped. Even in civilization, where Cayden came from, any object capable of granting visions would receive at least a small following of the devout.

Mara remained reticent and didn't tell Cayden much. At the same time, the both of them were tired. The hangover-scented exhaustion eventually left the two curling up to sleep again rather than to question anything on Cayden's part, so as to have more energy when the revelry started again. This time, Cayden was looking forward to doing it together with his partner, and yet - as he woke up from his slumber just as the sun was beginning to set - he caught Mara sneaking out of the hut without as much as waking him up to inform him about it, while Cayden was still trying to sober up a little from the constant boozy haze of the wine.

Cayden was frustrated. It felt as if Mara was deliberately avoiding him. It was fair enough, given the kind of relationship they had. He would only feel slightly jealous watching her get fucked by someone else, though, so she didn't really have an excuse for not telling him what the deal was. Not just that. Every time he left the hut - as much as he liked the festival itself - he could practically feel the villagers' eyes on him, and it was unnerving.

He was sure they didn't mean anything bad by it. It was just a different culture, where staring at him like he was a piece of meat was socially acceptable, Cayden reasoned. It just made him feel a little strange. The constant buzz from the wine helped, at least, and though he'd tried asking for water to avoid getting even more intoxicated, the villagers didn't seem to understand what he meant. Then again, he hadn't seen anyone else drinking water, either. It was almost too much, especially this early in the morning, but certainly they made good on their promise to treat him as a guest of honor.

Though dizzy, Cayden's mind was already made up. Upon noticing her leave, he quickly and quietly clambered to his feet and followed her, purely on instinct, carefully stalking his girlfriend through the torch-lit streets and alleys of the little village, and a good distance outside it too, along a jungle path. He walked, following Mara - and soon several other women who joined her along the way - deep into the darkness, until the road faded into a path, and then a trail, until it was barely noticeable at all. The thought of finding his way back alone was terrifying, further fueled by the pitch black and yet very noisy jungle around him, but Cayden forced that thought out of his head. He'd worry about that once he'd figured out this first mystery.

Chapter 3

Eventually, Mara reached a clearing with several others. A dozen people or so, of mixed species, all deep in the throes of the kind of hedonistic, mindless pleasure that cultures outside this place typically frowned upon. Almost ritualistic. He watched from the shadows as the women mounted man after man - all but one, the maned wolf he'd seen earlier, who stood off to the side - and rode them until mutual climaxes sent them both howling, snarling, and barking with pleasure. Well, presumably that was the goal.

It was a rather beautiful sight. Cayden felt as if he was witnessing some kind of primordial ritual, animals in heat perhaps, a pagan cult from the dawn of time. And this might as well have been that; he had no idea how long this village had existed, but all their practices, buildings, and even their language seemed old. At least from the days of the Inca empire, if not even older, an offshoot that never followed their compatriots into the modern age. It was fascinating, and beautiful, in the most base and carnal sense. Cayden could feel his cock slipping free of its sheath again as he watched the villagers frolic. Mara was there, too, currently waiting for her turn with a couple of fingers buried snugly between her legs, slowly pleasuring herself.

Cayden only caught a few seconds of the action before someone tapped him on the shoulder, and with how transfixing the scene in front of him was, he never heard them walk up to him.

"Suwa hayway," that someone spoke in a thankfully soft tone, before waving to the crowd. "Go join them. Better than spying," he added, with a laugh, and gave Cayden a rough shove, sending him tumbling out of the bushes and into the well-trodden clearing. The orgy instantly quieted down and he felt a dozen eyes on him.

"I was wondering_when you'd join us," Mara smiled, immediately approaching her partner with a wide grin and not a shred of clothing on her beautiful body. "I wanted you to take the initiative, though. We will never _force the guest of honor to play his role. Only those with sufficient... hunger."

Cayden stood there, stunned, for a moment. His arrival was treated only with natural surprise, but soon enough, everyone returned to what they had been doing; freely mating with each other. All but Mara and Maya, that was. They instead approached Cayden, each taking an arm, and guiding him towards the group. He followed along, already rather hard and wanting, because as strange as the situation was, of course he wanted to participate. Sex with this many beautiful women at once was like a dream come true.

It all felt like a dream, too. Cayden still felt floaty from the amount of wine he'd been drinking, and he could scarcely believe that this was something real, something that he wasn't going to suddenly wake up from. Yet, Mara and Maya deftly pulled off the shirt he'd put on to ward off the midnight chill, and then his pants as well, giggling as his rock-hard cock sprung free with an eager bounce.

"Mm, you've been keeping him all for yourself?" Maya asked, breathily. "I think you'll have to let me... receive him, sister."

Sister? Half-sister at most, in that case, being that they were of different species. Perhaps it was simply something that the villagers called each other, Cayden thought, before his attention was naturally drawn to the two beautiful women attending to him, again. What she meant by "receive him" Cayden had no idea of, but he - or rather, his aching cock - could imagine a few possibilities, all equally sexy.

Mara smiled back. "If you'd like," she replied, and then gestured for a few of her friends to join her. "Pleasure him. But... let Maya alone mount his cock."

She climbed atop her partner, straddling his chest much like the anonymous coyotes had, earlier, blocking his view of what was happening behind her. Then, Mara leaned down, placing her muzzle almost in Cayden's ear.

"You'll be breeding her," she whispered. "Putting your pups in her belly. That is one half of this celebration, bringing fresh blood into our tribe. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Your lasting legacy. We'll just get you ready."

It was a little early in his life for Cayden to have thought of a legacy. Still, his cock bucked in someone's hand as he imagined it. Maya was nothing if not smoking hot, and the thought of getting to have bare, natural sex with her almost made the wolf's head swim with desire. Caught in the fantasy as he was, he was only brought back to reality by the feeling of a tongue lapping along the sensitive underside of his cock. Then, another set of warm, soft lips over the tip, and a_third_ mouth gently inhaling his heavy balls to slather them with loving, appreciative licks as well.

"There you go, Cay. Just relax and enjoy. You're our guest of honor, after all. Let them pleasure and get you ready to plant that wonderful seed of yours," Mara murmured, her hands brushing over Cayden's chest and belly lovingly.

It felt rather like heaven. Cayden threw his head back with a groan, luxuriating I the feeling of three eager women all but worshipping his cock. The feeling of their tongues coiling around him, their lips engulfing his hardness was almost indescribable. One started to bob her head on him; the other two licked the lower parts of his cock, around and under his swelling knot, and even nudging their tongues _into_his sheath, a feeling so intense it almost made Cayden cum on the spot. He was soon gently rocking his hips up, unable to fight that deep-seated masculine urge to thrust into the sweet, warm, wet sensations.

At the same time, he saw Maya standing off to the side, watching. The maned wolf was stunning, naked or not, and he could feel her eyes on him. She was dripping wet, with an eager, lusty grin on her face, and even from a few meters away, Cayden could smell her need. She was not only horny, but in heat, her body primed and ready to receive his seed and to be fertilized. He let out a gasp, his cock jerking again in one of his lovers' mouths, spitting a strand of clear warm precum over her tongue, to a satisfied mmh from the woman in turn.

He was throbbing wildly. And only then did the three women suddenly withdraw, leaving him to twitch and jerk vainly in the cool night air, his cock illuminated like some divine - or profane - instrument of virility in the flickering torchlight. And only then did Maya approach, with her wetness visibly staining the fur of her thighs.

"Mm. Do you like her? Would you like her to be the mother of your pups?" Mara murmured. Her hand snuck down his front to briefly cup his swollen balls. For all the pleasure, he hadn't been allowed to cum yet. Sure, he'd spilled his seed yesterday, but with this many beautiful women around he could recover fully in minutes, especially as Maya's scent filled his nostrils with the amazing musky tang of a woman deep in heat.

There was, still, that lingering notion of something being off about it all. The strangeness of these rituals, and the constant focus on mushrooms. But he could hardly think of anything except burying his cock in that fertile, wet, puffy slit between the maned wolf's long legs. She, as if reading his mind and in touch with his innermost desires, climbed into his lap, to the sound of another cheer from the watching villagers. He felt Mara's hands on his shoulders, kneading encouragingly as she watched the other woman slowly mount him. Slowly.

Though dripping wet, Maya took her time. She let her puffy slit slip along the length of Cayden's knotted shaft, coating his rigid, masculine flesh in her juices. She bit her lip and whimpered with pleasure before raising her hips once more and grasping the base of the wolf's cock to nudge his leaking, tapered tip against her entrance. Her immense heat made Cayden groan, as well, the hint of warmth and promise of tightness leaving his cock twitching against her fingers, and into the wetness between her legs.

With near-agonizing slowness of motion, she lowered herself onto Cayden's cock. His bare cock, letting that throbbing, virile length spread her fertile body open and sink deep where it belonged. In some buried, barely noticeable way, Cayden was conflicted about having unprotected sex with a stranger, and of all the consequences that could come from it, but the roaring, deafening lust that filled his head made it all but impossible to care. What mattered was the clutching naked heat that swallowed inch after inch of his rigid shaft.

"Don't hold back," he heard Mara say, her voice carried by a hot whisper against his ear. "Breed her. Sire your first life. Show that this is your calling."

His first life? His calling? It sounded like nonsense, but he was buried balls deep inside a goddess of a maned wolf, whose hips were already grinding back against him, soaking his crotch in the juices that dripped down her thighs and his cock. He didn't care about what might've sounded like nonsense; this feeling was what he lived for, he just decided. He was going to give Maya every single baby she asked for and he'd do it with breathless, passionate abandon.

Finally, he could control his urges no longer. His hands locked around Maya's twisting, rocking hips and he dug his fingers into her soft, feminine flesh. Then he began to thrust up and into her, repeatedly plunging his throbbing cock as deep as it'd go, until his slowly swelling knot kissed her puffy inner lips. It was amazing how perfectly Maya engulfed him, her inner muscles milking every inch of him.

It was good enough that he couldn't even force his knot into her before he was already cumming, howling out in pleasure towards the skies as he suddenly jerked inside her almost violently, pumping her - a stranger who he barely even knew the name of - full of rope after rope of thick, virile cum. Barely had his orgasm ended before he was on top of her, rutting into Maya like a bitch in heat to the rhythm of her body wetly squelching around her. She moaned too, at the top of her lungs, utterly shameless. For those moments, the two of them were nothing but animals. Maybe _less_than animals. Nothing but a cock and a pussy, caught in the shuddering pleasure of their only function. The rest was secondary, meaningless, trivial, and something about the situation, or perhaps something he'd been eating at the village, had Cayden so pent up that he felt like he could never get enough.

Again, his cock twitched inside her. Another load of fresh seed spurted deep into her welcoming pussy, once against washing over her cervix and leaking into her womb. Everything blurred together. He was atop her, pinning her shoulders into the dirt, kissing the stranger with ravenous hunger while filling her yet again, and then she was riding him once more. Only this fourth time, while their mostly female audience cheered for them both, he could feel her incredibly tight, almost vice-like body yield around his slippery knot.

For a split second her full weight pressed against that swollen, engorged bulb. A moment of intense, ecstatic concentration by them both. Then, he popped into her. She screamed with joy as her sex clenched around him to the now-familiar rhythm of her orgasm, utterly soaking the wolf with her wetness. And he gave her everything, ensuring her pregnancy, as the world faded into blinding white and collapsed into nothing but blind, wet, and sticky euphoria.

It took a while for either of them to even breathe steadily after that. Eventually, tough, Maya stirred, waking up from the post-coital haze and looking down at the wolf with a growing sense of purpose. Mara handed her something, and she stuck it into her mouth, chewing quickly, and yet taking great care not to swallow as her expression twisted at the overwhelmingly bitter flavor.

While Cayden was still recovering from his many orgasms and thus defenseless, Maya leaned in and kissed him. He embraced it at first, until he felt something thick and slimy slip into his mouth, and before he could react, down his throat. Cayden gagged, trying to struggle onto all fours, only for the entire group to suddenly move to restrain him, as if Maya - firmly tied to him and straddling him - wasn't enough. He was pinned down, unable to do anything but struggle and retch.

Maya wiped a purple slime from the corner of their mouth. "Relax," she purred. "You won't feel anything soon."

"W-what? Get off me, you're... crazy," Cayden stuttered. He could barely get the words out, with his tongue suddenly feeling swollen and stiff. "Why cannae- can-" he slurred.

"You've done your duty. Now it's time to take your new place," Maya smiled, her grin suddenly downright venomous."And what you just swallowed will help."

Cayden found his body growing numb, as if every muscle in his body was falling asleep slowly. "Wh- whuh-"

"You'll see. Soon you'll become the new flesh of our protector," Maya smiled from atop him.

A dull ache was building up inside Cayden's limp body. And at the same time, whatever he had been forced to ingest was warping his senses. The world changed, though subtly at first. He was surrounded not by the tribespeople who had welcomed him, but half-human monsters. All but Mara and Maya, who remained beautiful to him, even if their motivations suddenly seemed far less noble than he wished.

With his strength drained and his muscles paralyzed, Cayden slumped back into the grass as his grip on reality slipped through his fingers, his eyes losing focus as if he was drunk. Whatever he had been fed wasn't only paralyzing him, not even only spreading its roots in his stomach, it was immensely intoxicating.

"You look so beautiful like that," he heard Mara whisper, and he felt his lover's fingers dance over his sex-scented fur. The world, though, had stopped making sense to the wolf. Colors swirled and smeared, and everything fragmented into endless spiraling fractals. In a detached sense, he was aware that they were carrying him somewhere, but he wasn't aware of much beyond that. The squeezing around his knot felt all-encompassing now, and despite being "spent," he kept orgasming, again and again. Maya's body kept milking him for the very last of his seed while they were paraded around, with the strange psychotropic fungus seemingly wringing his body dry. Yet Mara's voice had an almost sinister edge to it, and seemed to linger thick in the air as they were placed onto some kind of stretcher to be carried the rest of the way.

He managed to turn his head enough to focus his blurry gaze on Mara. "Help," he whispered, hoarsely, his throat feeling as dry as if he hadn't drunk for a year. As if something was draining him.

"Her? Oh, right, you thought you were partners," Maya giggled. The giggling, despite her cruel words, made her clench tightly around Cayden's swollen knot. "No, her entire purpose was to bring us our next haywayta. Our offering."

Cayden grit his teeth. He tried, as hard as he could, to force his mind out the hallucinatory haze, but to no avail. He was helpless. "No, that... can't..." he whispered, weakly.

"That is what our _spores_do," Maya grinned. What had once looked charming or hot was now the malevolent smile of a demoness. "Would you like to know what will become of you?"

Cayden felt himself losing more and more control of his body. The paralytic was so strong that only his eyes remained functional. Panic was beginning to set in, fear that he'd remain like this forever, and the bitter sting of apparent betrayal. He and Mara had never had a_traditional_ relationship, but the thought that they'd only met so she could lure him here, for whatever ungodly ritual they were planning was too much. So many years of his life, wasted just so he could... what?

"You will become the host of our protector, our deity-" she uttered a name that made Cayden's ears hurt, jagged and rough. "-to blossom, to consume, to be consumed, just as his former host did, just as he consumed, and we consumed him in turn!"

The maned wolf's voice dissolved into that would best be described as zealous bliss as she described their unnamable god. She shuddered, still firmly tied to Cayden. "And I shall bear your child, _his_child, to become either another of his spores or to become the offering in turn!"

What was she talking about? Even through the roiling, twisting veil of hallucinations, he questioned if any such deity existed at all. Certainly, it shouldn't be possible, scientifically speaking. Unless, of course, they viewed the ever-present fungus as a divine figure, being that it was all they'd been eating and drinking for the entire festival. And that's when the realization struck Cayden, tearing through his senses. They would use him to grow more of it. And then they'd eat him. Just as they'd eaten the previous "deity," explaining the disgusting fungus-like meat. Had he been able to, the wolf would've voided his guts at the realization.

It had been a beautiful, sexual dream one moment. And the next, it was a waking nightmare. Whatever they had forced down his throat was starting to burn, his insides feeling like a mass of eels shifting, squirming, and trying to crawl out of him. The numbness did nothing to ease the pain. A cry of pain escaped his paralyzed vocal cords as nothing more than a sigh. Through tear-filled eyes he caught a glimpse of the village and realized quickly that the crowd was carrying him to the tree where their "deity" dwelled or had once dwelled, before the "blossoming".

Blossoming. Like a mushroom, its body disintegrating to spread its spores, but as a display of death and decay rather than life. Trapped inside his own body, Cayden could do nothing, not even squirm, as whatever poison they had fed him slowly consumed his insides to the raucous cheers of the crowd. He felt sticky, even wet, covered in cold sweat that blanketed his skin while his organs in turn felt feverishly hot.

They laid him down by the tree. With a slight yank of her hips, Maya slipped free, and the villagers cheered again at the sight of the wolf's sperm oozing out of her well-bred cunt. She bowed gracefully, once again repeating their deity's name, which the others echoed. The dissonance of those syllables still made Cayden's ears hurt, but his whole being was dissolving into a searing pain.

Mara knelt in front of him. In her eyes, a look of genuine affection. For a second, Cayden felt hope, and then realized that her affection wasn't for him. It was to whatever was consuming him, whatever he was to become.

"Goodbye, Cayden," she smiled, and planted her lips against his in a final passionate kiss. There was, perhaps, the slightest hint of love in the gesture, but not nearly as much as she felt for her perverse deity. As such, it felt patronizing. Anger flared as the pain Cayden felt grew, but at the same time, he desperately didn't want his former partner to leave, because intuitively, he knew he'd never see the light of day after she did.

When the kiss broke, she turned her back and never looked at him again, as two other villagers carried him inside_the tree, down a long dark tunnel and into a cold, wet cave beneath the ancient tree. One, with his cold and slimy hands, forced a gag into Cayden's mouth, and the other forced some kind of tube, root, or tentacle in through the ring's gag. Foul-tasting slime immediately filled his mouth. It'd ensure he didn't die, no matter how much he wanted to. Not before the infestation had completely consumed his body and mind. Yet no matter how grim his fate, more than anything, Cayden felt _betrayed.

They left him there, alone in the suffocating darkness, unable to even scream, amidst the shattered body of their protector's last host, his own already being overtaken by whatever unholy fungus they worshipped while the party continued aboveground. To lay down and rot, to consume and be consumed, the blossom. To rot. To consume. To be consumed. To blossom. He saw, through feverish and warping thoughts, an elongated and swollen grey figure - Mara's father - kneel over him, caress Cayden's cheek with his disproportionate, myceliated hand, welcoming him into their sick, decomposing unity.

It wasn't before the fungus began to devour his mind that he regained enough control to scream.

Chapter 4

"...and here is where your father rests as he makes our soil fertile and our crops abundant," Maya smiled, dragging her fingers through the head-fur of her son. "Where he will rest until he is needed. But maybe you'll meet him before it's his turn to blossom."

The festival was many years away, still. Beneath the ground, if one listened closely, one could hear the restless somnolent thumping of the village's slumbering deity. Twisted beyond recognition, the distorted and disproportionate creature never left its den. Even the tribe members themselves found it difficult to behold their deity directly, for how hideous the grey and stretched husk that remained of Cayden was, which was the case with all previous protectors as well. Though some considered this one's withdrawn nature to be a blessing, it meant less of the nourishing fungal growth the village depended on. Others considered it a dire omen.

"You'll be one of his spores," Maya continued, murmuring as she embraced the hybrid wolf she and the _offering_had conceived, telling him the myths and stories just as Maya's mother had told them to her. "To guide a replacement to us once the time for him to blossom comes."

The blossoming was every ten years, when the current protector erupted into a cloud of spores to blanket the jungle in the growths the village depended on. And then, just in time for the festival, they'd consume his deflated form, just as mushrooms consumed trees, only to be themselves consumed by insects or even time itself. At least, if the traditions and rituals continued unbroken as they had for centuries.

As for Cayden himself, there was little left of him. The pain had stopped, yes, but so had most other thoughts. All except the yearning for the one who he'd once wished to be his partner, muted and yet still intense enough for the village to occasionally wake up to gurgling howls emanating from the tree. Rage that managed to taint even the fungus that'd consumed all of him. Sorrowful rage that none of the previous protectors had felt, or at least not shown, to such a degree, for none of the previous had been lured to the village by love.

While Maya told her son everything - details that he'd never remember at this early age - she hoped that she was still right, that it hadn't been a mistake. That their deceit hadn't unleashed something worse, something less aligned to their interests. They'd only know once what-had-been-Cayden woke up from his restless sleep, to bloom.

She shivered at the thought of it, with both anticipation and anxiety.