The lion, the badger and the druid (Unbirthing)

Story by Strega on SoFurry

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Faroul the lion-man has had a long, hard life of adventuring, and all he wants now is a good way to die...and he's found one.


The lion, the badger and the druid

By Strega

The lion-man at the bar stood an inch under seven feet tall, his fur thin with age and his scarred nose and muzzle a sign to everyone who paid attention that this was a seasoned veteran. Broad of shoulder and narrow of waist, his brown-black mane was bound into a dozen and more braids each with a silver-and-turquoise band. Across his back hung hung a sword as battlescarred as he was and with a strong iron scabbard that well showed how many times it had blocked an incoming blade. The rest of his gear, leather wristguards with their iron strips to steel breastplate to the strong jointed plates that protected his knees and ankles, was as nicked and dented as the scabbard but just as functional.

But Faroul's strength, while still formidable, was not what it once once. The milky white of cataracts had begun to cloud his amber eyes and his majestic pace occasionally had a hitch in it as his well-worn joints complained. He covered it well and like any khardaki who wanted them, he had little trouble snagging a barmaid or bored housewife pining for more excitement than they got from their husbands. His subtly barbed penis was as black as his nosepad and thick as a woman's wrist and stuffing it into a tight little human - or whatever - never got old.

Yet even that would soon pall. Old age was too close for comfort and Faroul's last years were upon him.

When he heard the men at the corner table talking about the druid, Faroul knew what he must do.

"Big as a cart, that badger is," one farmer said. "And the claws on it! Long as your forearm."

"She's harmless," said another farmer with a waggle of his beer-mug. "The druid was letting children ride her yesterday and you never saw a sweeter-tempered beast. I don't know what he feeds her but it's not kids."

"Big worms," suggested the first farmer. "Bandits? The foxtaur eats those."

"It hissed at my boy," said the farmer with the long black beard. "Like a teakettle. The druid apologized, my son was wearing his militia gear and it doesn't like scale-mail." He shrugged. "Said it pulls her fur out when someone wearing that rides her."

"Excuse me," Faroul growled. He'd approached as the three talked. "Are you talking about the druid who rides the giant badger? Thistle, I think he named it?"

Four sets of eyes turned to look him over. He didn't have to try to look impressive. That came naturally to a lion. The armor and sword just added to the impression that he was big, dangerous and to be respected.

"Thistlefur," said the oldest of the farmers - probably older than Faroul, but with a family to fall back on. Mistakes throughout his life had cost Faroul his chance at that. There was a reason he was a lone wolf - or lone lion.

"That druid ain't causing any trouble, sir," said the black-bearded farmer. "Or his badger. Nothing needs doin' about that pair."

Faroul put a shiny gold coin on the table. It came down with a clunk, more money than a farmer got for a month of labor. You could buy a long night of good drink for four men with that one gold Wheel or, as Faroul occasionally had, a night with an expensive and talented harlot.

"I mean him no harm," he growled. "I just want to talk to him. I've heard about them and who knows when I'll next get a chance to see a giant badger?"

The oldest farmer silently slid a hand out to cover the coin and the four shared looks. Eventually the old farmer spoke.

"You'll find them half a league up the north road," he said. "Camped out in a little ruin. Saw 'im setting up his tent when I rode in to town."

*****

Thistlefur belched and the druid smiled. His mount had sniffed out the burrow of an ankheg among the ruins, and though the monster had fought for its life and spat acid, it was reduced to a pile of exoskeletal plates with most the rest now a bulge in the giant badger's middle. Two thick legs had survived her appetite and soon enough now the druid would dine on roasted bug-flesh. Under other circumstances he would have let the monster be but his mount was hungry and the druid had friends among the farmers who the bug would certainly have ambushed at the first opportunity.

There was shiny new fur on Thistlefur's flank where he'd healed an acid burn and a bite but the badger was thick-skinned and tough. The ankheg was feeling her acids now and everyone, save the bug, was happy with the outcome.

One of the badger's cup-shaped ears swiveled suddenly and the druid turned his head to listen. It was a minute before he heard the clink of metal on metal. Just one person, pacing slowly but with long strides.

The druid knew his animals and animal-men were included in that tally. He saw at a glance that the tall khardaki was battle-weary. The lion-man stopped where the road met the ruins and drove the point of his spear into the dirt. Leaving it standing there like a banner-pole he unbuckled the sword from his back and hung it from the haft of the spear. This demonstration of peaceful intent complete he stepped forward on sandaled feet until he was within easy conversational distance.

The druid loathed adventurers, but the more beastly of them he'd at least give a chance to talk, and this one was exceptionally polite.

"Good day," growled the lion, and squatted down so he didn't tower over the druid. He let out the least wince as his joints creaked. "Some farmers told me where to find you."

"And now that you have, what is your business," the druid said curtly. Beastman or not, this was clearly a mercenary, an adventurer. Men like this had cost him his friends and family, many years back. To this day he hated mercenaries, and dozens of them had ended up inside Thistlefur as a result. His mount was the most convenient body disposal imaginable and it's hard to prove a crime when not so much as a scrap of the victim can be found.

"I am Faroul, and I am old," growled the lion. "Soon now I will fall in battle, and I could die that way with few regrets, but my strength is not what it once was. I will not impress my fellows in heaven with a tale of a weak old lion's last fight."

"What does that have to do with me," the druid said, and the lion shot a sly glance toward Thistlefur. The badger was gnawing a last shred of meat from one of the ankheg's belly plates. She could have crunched up and swallowed the bug's armor too, but the meat was enough to satisfy her.

"A year ago I was caravan-guard with a drunkard named Selis," the lion growled. "He was useless in a fight and fell a little later when orcs raided the wagons, but before he died he told me he'd been sleeping off a binge in the woods one night and saw something so strange he thought at first it was the wine talking."

The druid concealed his alarm. Surely the lion didn't know about -

But he did. "From under a bush, still drunk and not believing what he saw, Selis saw a man pulled right into your badger's sex. Afterward, he said, there was just a burp, as though the fleshy folds were another mouth." He shrugged. "It is not the strangest thing I've heard of. That man did not come back out as a man, did he? The beast has to eat, and I think that people who go in end up as food, no matter what hole they enter by."

"Yes," said the druid, and Thistlefur pricked up her ears at his subtle hand signal. Subtle, but the weary old lion noticed it.

"I have told no one," growled the lion. "Who would believe it? I wasn't sure I did, until I saw how large she is."

The lion slowly unbuckled first one, and then the other vambrace, peeling the leather-and-steel armor from his forearms. He was doing the same to his leg armor when he spoke again, and his hands next went to his breastplate.

"I will die soon," he growled. "One way or another. I have no family, and few friends. I have made mistakes. But I wish to die well, and I think I've found the best way to die that there is."

The druid signaled Thistlefur and the badger, whose muscles had begun to tense, settled down again. The lion man stood, naked but for fur and stroked the long, soft hairs beneath Thistlefur's tail. Before long he was rubbing the lips of her sex, and she did not object but rather turned her head and watched him past the long fur of her flank.

"A lovely thing," the lion growled as he slipped his hand into Thistlefur's sex. The badger chittered and pushed back against him, and with a long wet slithering sound the tan-furred arm disappeared all the way to the shoulder.

"She is a good friend," said the druid, and watched the muscles in the lion's shoulder work as he stroked Thistlefur's vulva from within. The lion's other hand slipped down to cradle his sheath, already swollen hard. Khardaki are hung much better than normal lions and already his black tip protruded.

"My gear is all unmarked," the lion began, then he grinned as Thistlefur's sex clamped down. "Ah, there we go." The excited badger backed up again, and the lion braced himself to meet the advancing sex. There was a squelch as feline ears, muzzle, and much of the mane were engulfed by the badger's sex, and that was the last of the conversation the druid had with the tall lion.

The druid had tried to talk his mount out of sucking in the last person to fist Thistlefur and failed. An entire centaur had disappeared into the wet folds of her sex, kicking and squirming. The lion on the other hand did not struggle, did not resist. As the badger's growing lust caused her sex to twitch and ripple he was pulled in quite willingly, head and shoulders gone in moments. Bit by bit the cat-man's upper body was sucked in, then his belly, and the arm that hadn't already disappeared kept moving as the khardaki masturbated furiously. He came on her bellyfur just before his groin was sucked out of sight.

When the hips, too, were consumed by Thistlefur's hungry sex there was no sign left that the lion had gone in voluntarily. There was just a lashing tail and a set of kicking, mucular legs that grew shorter by the moment. The badger chattered and tensed as her own passion grew near and the druid watched with muted horror as the cat-man's legs twitched spasmodically. He himself had labored with spells to enable Thistlefur to swallow prey whole with her various holes but it was unnerving still to see a man sucked into her sex.

Even if he'd wanted to there was no way to save the lion now. It was safe enough to fuck Thistlefur because on the average your cock was too small for her to get a real grip, or if you were big enough to really hump her you were strong enough to resist being sucked in. If something the size of a man foolishly stuck something into her besides his cock, such as his face or arm, why, that was a different story.

Obedient as the badger was to his wishes when she got this excited she would not stop until she was satisfied. She was a big badger and unless you were hung like a dragon (or like a certain very large foxtaur) your penis just wasn't going to do the job. Your entire body, on the other hand, was just the thing.

Stretched out in the wet tunnel of pussy, his mane and fur slicked down with the badger's warm juices, Faroul was grinning. In two minutes he had already come twice, amazingly fast for even a khardaki, and his hand, wrapped around his cock and pressed against the muscular folds of the badger's sex, still did not stop moving. The smell of her! He knew well the scent of a female in need and his rough tongue had serviced a dozen species worth of women, but to be wrapped in a sex, sucked in whole!

Oh, if he had been younger, perhaps he would have fought. He could smell the difference in the juices up ahead. Either the beast was some freak of nature or someone - probably her master the druid - had changed her inside. No normal animal sucked a man in like this and digested them with its sex, but the smell told him that was what was going to happen.

But he had gone to the druid knowing what would happen. The squelching wetness of the badger's sex squeezed him deeper, and as his muzzle and mane emerged into the dark folds of her womb he could smell the acid. The thick strong walls of her inner chamber were dripping with glutinous, stinging fluid and as it mixed with the lubricating slime already coating him his nosepad and other exposed flesh began to sting.

There was a shudder in the walls around his lower body and a long chittering growl he heard right through the muscle and tough pelt. Thistlefur came, and her vulva clamped down, squirting him inward. The enormous badger shivered and yowled and deep inside her Faroul curled up, wrapped in the wet flesh of her body.

Khardaki have great sharp fangs in their leonine muzzles and though their finger-claws are more like nails, the ones on his digitigrade feet were three inches long and cruelly sharp. He could do a lot of damage from in here and keep the druid busy healing his monstrous mount until the moment he died...if that had ever been his intent.

That wasn't why he had slid his arm into Thistlefur. He had done that knowing what would happen. In the dripping darkness Faroul sat up, tail wrapped around his feet, and set about seeing if he could manage one more ejaculation before he ran out of air. He'd have quite a story to tell his fathers in heaven when he arrived. The flesh was warm and wet and snug around him and just as he had planned, he had found the most amazing way to die that any lion might ask for.

There was a twitch in the wet flesh of Thistlefur's sex and a long chitter from the badger as she shurdered through a climax. Though even the lion's tail had slurped out of sight a minute before her sex pulsed visibly, perhaps expelling the lion's legs into the womb-stomach deep within. Finally she quieted and the druid rubbed the fur beneath her ear.

"Good girl," he murmered, and Thistlefur chittered at him lovingly. She'd been reluctant at first to eat people this way but that had lasted only until the first one was sucked in. The passage of something that size into her vulva provoked in her the most powerful orgasms. Even he had been sucked in a few times, and were it not for his magic and shape-changing ability she would be shy a master by now. The strange interconnections in her innards meant no matter which hole you went in, you'd come out beneath her tail after being digested.

The lion had known that when he fisted her and now he was just where he wanted to be. Thistlefur's sex twitched as a wet belch escaped its depths and the druid paused in the act of gathering up the lion's possessions. Though he had been a mercenary and represented everything hated, the druid still felt a few words were needed.

"Go with my blessing, Faroul," he said to the bulge in Thistlefur's abdomen. "You join most of an ankheg on a trip through my mount's bowels. I hope your death was everything you wanted it to be."

With that said the druid ignored the little tent he'd set up earlier and spread his sleeping-roll close to the badger's flanks. Well fed from each end and sleepily digesting her meals she chittered before stretching out on her side to rest, and the druid did as well, Thistlefur's long flank-fur all the blanket he needed.