Kira grunted and groaned as she pushed her way through another thicket of dense, thorny brambles, another chill wind howling through the trees and sending a shiver through her densely muscled frame. The jagged, rocky terrain of the aptly named Barren Hills was hard to navigate on foot, and even harder to navigate when carting ten stone worth of dead weight on your back. Doubly so when that dead weight seemed dead-set on being snagged on every branch, or rolling down a snowy slope every time the gryphoness stopped paying attention for even a split second.
Kira had been alternating between carrying and dragging the *********** pantherkin for at least three miles now, and already she hated him approximately three times more than she thought possible. By her current estimate, by the time she managed to drag him back to pantherkin territory, she would hate him at least a hundred times more then that. Really, it wasn't just that he was heavy and limp and annoyingly prone to rolling away at the slightest breeze that she hated, it was pretty much everything else, too.
Rhaelyn, her erstwhile charge, should have cooperated with her from the start. If he had, he would be conscious and mobile, and the two of them would have already made camp by now. The gryphoness could have caught a few tundra wolves and they could have cooked them up over the fire, spinning yarns and forging a solid comradery. But no, instead he had insisted on fighting her - he had stabbed her and bludgeoned her and punched her and even lit her on fire. And worst of all - even worse than the physical abuse and the extraordinary amount of labor she now had to perform - she might not even be paid for the job.
Kira grunted again, pausing for a brief breather as she cast her head about. As she had suspected, the limp male had gotten himself caught on a thorny bush again, and was already halfway off her back. She muttered a few choice expletives under her breath, all of them in her native tongue, and set about hacking away at the brambles with her talons. This all could have been SO much easier.
But no, here she was, bruised and weary and lightly singed with a gangly biped draped over her back. The hen closed her eyes tight for a moment, fervently wishing - not for the first time today - that he'd wake up already. At first, she had been worried about how he might react, given the entirely justified beat-down she had given him earlier in the day, but at this point she really didn't care anymore. He was heavy, she was tired, and even if he woke up just to get all pissy and uppity again, she'd be more than happy to beat him down again.
WIth a vaguely satisfied sound, the gryphoness managed to wrench the feline free from the shrubs that seemed intent on devouring him whole. She briefly inspected him, making certain that he was still reasonably intact, before tugging him back over her and continuing up the endless slope. The sun had set well over an hour ago, and the winds were really picking up, so Kira knew that she needed to find shelter soon. Otherwise, she had to grudgingly acknowledge that she might be done for.
Normally, finding shelter would have been a simple task. She would have simply stretched out her wings and launched herself skyward, winging about in lazy circles until her sharp eyes picked out a comfortable looking cave. But no, once again she couldn't help but dwell darkly on the fact that a certain *********** feline had singed a good number of her feathers off, and-
Kira shook her head again, as if physically shaking the thoughts free. Grumbling and grousing certainly wasn't going to help her stave off death's icy talons, so she just had to keep at it. If she lolygagged about much longer there was a good chance she'd freeze where she stood, no matter how thick her hide, and heavens knew that the peacefully snoozing panther would almost certainly die. His glossy black fur was certainly lovely, but it was also stupidly short. The hen snorted to herself, absently wondering how a species could possibly evolve to have such thin skin and short fur. It probably had to do with all those fancy wooden caves they lived in, or maybe with all those fluttery cloth things they draped all over themselves.
The hen mulled over that for a moment longer, plodding along mindlessly, before some primitive part of her hindbrain chirped at her. Abruptly alert, keenly attuned to her briefly hibernating instinct, Kira turned her attention to whatever it was that her brain was trying to tell her. Oh, a cave! A cave! The black gaping maw of stone, dirt and icicles was just dimly visible through the rocks and trees. Her eartufts perked, and the hen's pace quickened as she scrambled over a white sheet of iced-over stone and navigated past yet another thorny bramble. She was so happy to see a potential shelter that she was barely even miffed when the panther got tangled up in the bushes for the thirtieth time in one day.
Once the feline had been shorn free yet again, Kira hooked the collar of his fancy torso-cloth and dragged him the rest of the way to the dark opening in the hillside. Ditching his limp body in a shadowed nook, the female briefly investigated the cave, quickly discovering that it was a relatively shallow tunnel. There were no signs that it might be the lair of some wild beast, but from the unnatural uniformity she had to guess that it was the start of an abandoned mine or quarry. The gryphons didn't make such things, of course, but occasionally some ambitious biped would wander deep into their territory in search of shiny stones or heavy metals. Some of them did indeed strike it rich, but most were instead promptly eaten.
Kira found that a bit of pep had returned to her step, now that the looming cloud of immenent doom had been dispersed. She nipped back out to the tunnel's entrance, hooked the pantherkin with her beak again, and dragged him into the darkness until she found her way to the rear-most wall. Tucking him against a long, wide stone that looked particularly comfortable, the gryphoness curled up next to him and mulled over the events of the day.
It had been a long day, and the female had to admit that it was apt to be the first of many. Even if the feline woke up and could somehow walk straight, they'd still need to traverse at least four or five day's worth of terrain before finding any truely safe harbor. Still, that was better than the alternative, given that the alternative involved spending two more weeks dragging a half-dead beastkin through the snow.
"Hey." Kira chirped, her tongue trying to roll the somewhat unfamiliar beastkin word. She reached out with one taloned forelimb, curling her fingers into a scaled fist as she jabbed the male in the side. No response. Not to be deterred, the hen persisted, jabbing a few more times. "Hey. Wake up."
This time, the male shivered a bit in response, although he stayed stubbornly ***********. He shifted against the cold stone, his muzzle working a bit as his breath rasped heavily, but then he fell still again and his breathing quieted to a whisper.
The hen chuckled, the sound not unlike the rasping of dead leaves. That was something, at least. She had almost started to worry that the panther had died somewhere along the line, but it looked like he still had a bit of life in him. He was obviously cold, though, even out of the freezing wind, and the hen didn't have many options available to her.
Kira shifted a bit, giving the male a quick once-over by what little moonlight was available - more than enough for her avian eyes. The felines cloth coverings were a mess, tattered and torn from a day's worth of being dragged over sharp rocks and through even sharper brush, although that really seemed to be the extent of the damage. Well, no, there was also the gaping hole torn in the crotch of his pants, but...
The hen leaned down, one taloned forelimb planted against one of Rhaelyn's thighs, pushing his legs apart from eachother so she could inspect the exposed bits and pieces again. She hadn't really thought about them over the past few hours, given her concerns with survival and all, but now that she had a moment's reprieve the exact details of her catfight were flooding back. Swallowing a bit nervously, Kira leaned in to examine the male's cargo with no small trepidation.
Kira gingerly settled across the males legs, both to warm them with her body heat and to keep them from fidgeting about, one taloned hand reaching down to gingerly, oh-so-carefully probe at his groin. She wasn't really sure what to think, honestly, given her lack of experience with the sexual organs of bipeds, but she was fairly certain the plumbing was at least a little similar to that of a male gryphon.
The female cocked her head a bit to one side and then the other as she tried to make heads or tails of what she might be looking at. Yes, those were probably the testicles, and that was obviously the cock, although the joints and muscles of his hips and thighs seemed all wrong. But still, the hen was more than a little pleased that her suspicions of beastkin anatomy had been more or less correct. It seemed a little strange to have all of that equipment just hanging off the front of the pantherkin's body where it could be so easily abused, but Kira supposed that it made sense given relative positioning and all. Really, it came down to the silly way that bipeds walked about, as if they were just asking for it.
A bit emboldened by her initial exploration, the hen carefully pressed two of her taloned fingers to the male's crotch as she continued to probe about. She was fairly certain that she had dealt out a lot of damage in this general region, and it only seemed proper that she take stock of things now that they were out of immediate danger. It was obviously the right thing to do, even if the panther had thoroughly deserved it at the time.
She focused a bit low, first, her scaled fingers pressing lightly to the feline's still-swollen sac. The skin of his scrotum was stretched tight over his misshapen balls, pulling them tight to his groin as if trying to protect them from the chill air. Still, it at least made it easy to tell if he still had two of them - wait, pantherkin only have two, right? Kira mulled over that for a few seconds before shaking her head in slight embarassment. Of course they only have two, she reminded herself. How many creatures could she think of that had three?
The gryphon gently caressed her talons over the taut flesh, the sharp tips pricking at it as she tried to ever-so-gently nudge the lumps about just to make sure. Yes, it looked like there were definitely still two there, so at least she hadn't obliterated anything during her earlier display of... ah... aggressive battlefield negotiations. Still, they didn't look very healthy.
Now, Kira was no expert in testicles, whether they belonged to a pantherkin or a gryphon, but she had always been under the impression that they were supposed to be round and relatively symmetrical. From what she was seeing, though, the feline's clearly bruised sac was wrapped around a pair of distended ovals, one clearly swollen larger than the other. She wasn't entirely certain what size they should be, either, but she suspected that the panther wasn't normally packing a pair of apples between his legs. Maybe a bit on the small side for apples, granted, but the right one in particular wasn't too far off.
"Still," Kira thought to herself "better apples than, uh... what is it the centaurs call it? Apple sauce. Better apples than apple sauce." The gryphon couldn't help but giggle, this time, perhaps at the imagery that the word conjured, or perhaps at the fleeting memory of the feline's facial expression when his numerous ambushes had been countered. And those sounds he had made!
The female turned her attentions to the male's length, now, with no small degree of fascination. This was a bit less familiar than the lower bits, she had to admit. She had only been with two drakes in the past, both the disappointing culmination of a misguided relationship, but enough to give her a passing idea of what a male's cock should look like. On drakes, however, the whole thing was normally kept sheathed and slung close to the belly until they were ready for use. Apparently this was not so with the pantherkin - well, with THIS pantherkin, at least.
It didn't seem damaged, at least, with no obvious lacerations or swelling. In fact, it really seemed like the opposite of swelling, given that she distinctly recalled something larger and firmer pressing against her toes during her tense standoff with the panther. She nudged the limp length about with one of her slightly duller talons, thoughtfully. Clearly the male had been excited then, as opposed to borderline comatose like he was now. Disappointing.
Kira finally dragged her attention away from the male's damaged goods, instead ******* herself to begin considering sleep. Now that the excitement of the day was well and truely passed, exhaustion was beginning to creep in at the edge of her mind. She shifted her position again, this time gripping her talons against the stone to either side of the panther as she crawled up over him before settling down carefully atop him like a heavy, feathery blanket. She pressed her feathered cheek to Rhaelyn's chest as she rested her head, her body stretched out over his hips and legs. Reaching out with a forelimb, she captured his arms, tugging them down until she could drape her wings over them.
It wasn't the most comfortable way to sleep, but it was preferable to dealing with feline hypothermia in the morning. Kira's beak gaped wide, her lungs sucking in a deep yawn as her brain finally rebelled, swiftly working at shutting down all of her cognitive reasoning in it's entirety. Head nestled against the panther's chest, the hen closed her eyes and drifted off.
************************************************** ************************************************** ************
And just as quickly as it had come, the veil of sleep was lifted once more. Kira stirred, wincing a bit as her movements were met with sharp aches and pains, her bruised muscles urging her to stay and sleep a while longer. Unfortunately, even if she could afford to go back to sleep, the purring would have likely made it a tad difficult.
The... purring? One of the hen's eyes snapped open, her pupil dilating as it soaked in the ambient sunlight cascading into the tunnel. It was definitely warmer, now, the harsh winds and perpetual frozen torrent apparently taking a bit of a breather this early in the day. The gryphon's head lifted, dislodging an arm that had been draped casually over it, and she eyed the slumbering panther. Yes, he was definitely the source of that infernal rumbling.
Kira stretched a bit, kinks working audibly from her spine and her muscles howling in protest, the softer edges of her beak curling into a grin again at the very corners of her mouth. One taloned forelimb pressed to the stone as she propped herself partway up, her tongue briefly protruding from her beak in a show of faux annoyance.
"Well, I guess SOMEONE slept well," she said wryly, mostly for her own amusement. She shifted a bit more, her other forelimb planted against the ground to the panther's other side as she debated whether or not she should get up. Also, some small part of her couldn't help but wonder just what it was that was jabbing her in the gut. Brow furrowed a bit, the gryphon decided against the former, but couldn't help but be curious about the latter. She WAS part feline, after all, so curiousity came part and parcel.
Kira rolled a bit to the side, her neck craning as she peered downward between the two beasts, but her beak was already gaped in an amused grin before she had even confirmed what she already suspected. Ah, yes, there it was. Apparently in warming the male, the soft fur of the gryphon's underbelly had, ah... worked some kind of miraculous healing magics on his libido. His cock, and an immodestly sized one now that it wasn't hanging limp, was clearly standing at attention.
Talons planted, the gryphoness pushed herself back down along the male's body again to get a closer look. She couldn't deny that her interest was more than a little perverted, but she tempered whatever shame she might have felt by reassuring herself that she was just looking out for the pantherkin's better interests. After all, he really had been out of sorts the day prior, and Kira was at least a tiny bit responsible for whatever distress he had been put through.
The hen considered that for a moment, then nodded her head as if deciding that she agreed with her logic. Yes, that sounded plausible, and she could even repeat it to herself out loud if she started having doubts again. Thusly reaffirmed, she leaned in to inspect the male's genitals with all the subtlety of a butcher sizing up a slab of meat. His testicles definitely looked better now, relatively speaking, although a light jab with her talon was enough to set the male squirming against his stoney bed. That length, though...
Kira stared at it for a long moment, her predatory eye tracing up and down along it from base to tapered tip at least a dozen times. The shape was a bit odd, to her, but it certainly looked... healthy. What's more, it was standing on end of it's own volition, now, because the hen was almost scared to touch it. Still, staring wasn't getting her anywhere, so... she gingerly reached out a forelimb and prodded lightly at it, setting it to swaying just a bit.
"Nngh..."
The gryphon started a bit, holding her breath as the male shifted beneath her, and only after a long moment of silence did she dare move again. Slowly exhaling, she mulled it over - clearly that hadn't been a PAINED sound. No, she was fairly certain she knew what THOSE sounded like. Still, she had barely touched the thing! Maybe there was something wrong with it?
Kira cocked her head, watching the male's cock for another long moment, as if perhaps expecting it to do something. Finally, after another long moment of silence, she reached out to lightly press two fingers against it, as if trying to push it back down. Not surprisingly, this ploy wasn't met with much success - really, if anything it just made that organ harder to the point where it was almost tangibly pulsing beneath her claws.
The hen wracked her memory, thinking back to her last romantic liaison with an amorous drake, and suddenly the answer seemed obvious. Snorting faintly, hot air jetting from her beak, she drew in another deep breath before uttering an exaggerated sigh. "Fiiiine, I guess it's only fair. I should probably find out if everything's in working order, right? I mean, I'm still hoping to get paid for this job..."
Eartufts perked, Kira watched the panther for a moment, perhaps expecting a reply. Perhaps he might object, or even better he might express keen interest in this arrangement. Unfortunately, he did neither, instead just lying there making that rumbling purry sound and occasionally grunting or wriggling about. It was cute, but not the sort of response she was hoping for.
"Fine, alright, let's do this then. Let's just, uh..." Kira glanced about, at just a bit of a loss. If the male was ***********, how was she supposed to...? "Maybe if I kind of prop you up, I can... no..." The hen furrowed her brow, her talons drumming against stone as she tried to give the matter some thought. Interspecies diplomacy was always so difficult, especially when you got down to the raw mechanics of it.
"Maybe I can just kind of, uh, squat down and..." The hen pushed herself to her feet, prowling about a bit restlessly as she gauged the positioning. No, if she tried to straddle the male's lap she'd probably end up smothering him or getting a wicked cramp in her hindleg. She padded about in a circle, and then another, and another as she mulled over the positioning.
Well, it occured to her that there was always the easiest solution, although it wasn't nearly as fun. Still, she didn't see any real alternative, given the circumstances - especially not if she wanted to get this done before he woke back up. Wait, she WANTED him to wake up, didn't she? That was what she had been grumbling about all day yesterday, wasn't it? "Well, not yet I don't. Not right now."
Kira nodded again, agreeing with her entirely unsolicited verbal reassurance. It was hard to argue with herself, really, because she made a good point. If she was going to start testing out bits of the feline's plumbing, she probably DIDN'T want him to wake up just yet. That might make things a bit awkward, after all, and the last thing her awkward existence needed was something to make it even more awkward. "So... I'd better get to work, then!"
The hen settled across the male's legs again, curling about to set her beak near his crotch. He was still mostly hard, although her mulling and musing seemed to have given his more excited parts some time to calm down - or perhaps it was the cold? It WAS still a little chilly, and she hadn't been warming him with her body over the past twenty minutes while she had been hemming and hawing. She quickly remedied this concern by leaning down, beak gaped as she exhaled warmly over the panther's wounded nethers.
This seemed to have the desired affect, with some persistence, as the male's length seemed to rekindle it's interest in her entirely imagined verbal contract with it. What's more, she watched with no small fascination as his sac seemed to slowly loosen, his balls lowering away from his pelvis. She could almost imagine that they must be relaxing now that they knew they weren't in immediate peril. Encouraged, she leaned in to give them a fond nudge with her beak, before drawing her head back in surprise! They were hot to the touch!
No, not like a smoldering ember or anything, but they were definitely warm. Warmer than she was expecting. In fact, now that she was mulling it over, she realized that the male seemed to be practically radiating heat, particularly from his nethers - not that she was really close to any other part of his body, to be honest, but that didn't really matter at the moment. A faint, chirping giggle snuck out of her gaping beak, and she quickly pressed forward with her investigation once more.
A forelimb snuck back about, elbow resting against the ground as she boldly circled the fingers of one scaley hand about Rhaelyn's cock now, marveling at just how warm it was to the touch. The tactile sense in her forelimbs wasn't great, but she had no problem feeling the heat radiating off of his manhood, and what's more she could almost feel the vibrations of his rumbling purr through it, too!
Kira flexed her fingers, carefully trying to find a good grip about that handful. Her manual dexterity wasn't great, either, given that her hands were built for ripping and tearing rather than delicate maneuvering, but she certainly didn't hear the panther complaining. Finally she managed to get a good hold, and she began to work her hand up and down along the male's rigid shaft in a clumsy pumping motion. Still, clumsy or not it seemed to be having the desired affect, since the slumbering feline was suddenly twitching and moaning beneath her.
The corner of the hen's mouth curled upward again, her own breathing a bit ****** as she kept at it. Her beak dipped again, the smooth and unyielding curve pressing down into the male's sac as she rolled his balls around a bit, her hand busied all the while. The male's legs tensed beneath her, perhaps reacting to the sharp ache that the affectionate nuzzling rekindled, but Kira paid it no mind. Really, there were more important things to focus on then the male's minor discomforts!
The hen kept at it for another moment, nuzzling at the male's balls and stroking unevenly along his ample length, watching with fascination as her efforts were finally rewarded by glistening beads of pre-cum that streaked the sides of his shaft and moistened her scaley fingers. A bit of a playful rumble welled up at the back of her throat, now, setting a deeper counterpoint to the male's seemingly endless purr.
All guilt or shame forgotten, Kira shifted again as she leaned forward to gingerly capture Rhaelyn's cock in her beak. She took care not to nick or pinch the meat with the sharper tip of her beak, but instead slid it into her maw from the side where the edges of her beak were softer - that was how gryphons made facial expressions, after all. She didn't always have a leering expression of beaked terror. Just... most of the time. When she wasn't playing with her food.
Kira didn't even hesitate, fully realizing that a single second thought would be all it took to send her fleeing from the tunnel and into the wilderness looking for a place to hide in embarassment. Instead she focused on the moment, her soft tongue curling about the captured length as she thoroughly tasted it. It was a dark, musty flavor - a bit salty but not at all unpleasant - and before long she had thoroughly bathed over that slicked organ. It was enough to set her own saliva glands into motion to better lubricate the feline's cock - normally her beak was dry, but for when she was eating.
The hen set to bobbing her head, beak gaped a bit and her tongue curled as best she could manage about the captured piece of meat. It was a bit awkward, sure, but again, the panther certainly wasn't complaining. If anything, he was doing just the opposite, his body tensed and his own muzzle gaped as he uttered low moans or inarticulate prayers of thanks to some Beastkin goddess. The talons of one forelimb planted firmly against the ground, keeping Kira steady as she worked, the fingers of her other hand curling about his balls and gently rolling them about in her scaled palm.
This seemed to do the trick, because the male's length was suddenly spasming in her gaping maw, thick jets of his salty seed coating the inside of her beak. Kira almost choked, surprised by the sudden deluge that was assaulting her throat, but she tried to keep it under control. She choked down the beakful and then some, her fingers tightening about the male's balls as she tried to coax more and more out of them - and it seemed to work, to an extent, so she only stopped when the male's pleasured moans took on an octave closer to soprano.
The hen gasped for breath as she finally came up for air, an errant string of sticky spunk running down one side of her beak as she took a moment to recover, although her fingers stayed wrapped about the panther's orbs. Yes, everything definitely seemed to still be in good working order, so obviously she had nothing to worry about. Nothing whatsoever, forever and always.
But then the panther had to ruin her elation by moving again, this time stretching a bit as he roused, his ears slicked back and a grin on his muzzle. "Nnnhg... that was... that was great, mnf..."
Kira froze, one eye fixed on the panther as she watched him stir. Maybe he'd go back to sleep? Maybe she could convince him he was just dreaming, and then knock him out again? A small, predatory voice at the back of her skull was pushing her to kill him. Kill him now! Kill him before he knows! But Kira managed to suppress that voice, burying it under a heap of old memories about how she had been trained not to kill people just to get out of embarassing situations.
Rhaelyn drew in a deep breath, his joints popping and cracking rythmically as his stretching seemed to go on forever. It was so nice, he couldn't help thinking. It was so nice to be back home again after the nightmare that had been his ill-fated adventure. So nice to be back at home, and in bed beneath a thick feathered blanket with a no-doubt buxom girl from the Cat-House at his beck and call.
It must have been a busy night, though, because really he couldn't even remember how he had gotten home, or what girl he could possibly have ended up sleeping with. He opened one eye, sneaking a peek down at the female that was curled across his lap, before closing his eyes again and purring happily. "Nnh, I was having the best dream about that wolf-girl I met in the Amazonian wilderness, and it really felt for a moment like she was going down on- YOU!!!"
Rhaelyn's eyes snapped open, his spine straightened as he sat bolt upright, ears skewed and every ounce of his attention on the gryphon that was slowly trying to edge away from his still-hard cock. His mind was swimming, every memory of his battle the day prior quickly reasserting themselves squarely in the recall center of his brain. Just for added emphasis, though, he sputtered out the word again as if it were an accusation. "You!"
Kira's heart sank a bit, her eartufts slicked back to flatten them out against her skull. Her voice was small, now, her beak clacking nervously as she swallowed hard. "M-... me...?" Oh, goodness. How was she ever going to explain this? Maybe murder really WAS the simplest solution...
Originally Posted by zapan
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