FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"SHADI!" Isiat screamed as the gold-collared lioness went over the edge of High Fortune.

She never once looked back as she stepped into the nothingness that waited beyond the railing. Just hours ago, he'd confessed his feelings, perhaps foolishly, to her, and now, she'd gone and left the ship while they were still in flight! Isiat's icy blue eyes were wide with terror, the dark-furred, many-tailed fox watching on in horror.

His stomach rolled. All of the blood seemed to race from his features. The few crew members who saw him in those brief moments would later recall the black, white and red kitsune looking like a ghost as he shouted in panic.

She was falling, and his mind was racing faster than it had ever, or would ever again. He was in a dead sprint within a second of losing sight of her, though not to the railing. Around the top deck were stations for this exact kind of thing. They'd been level at three kilometres when the last shift log had come across his desk, and that was their average cruising altitude.

He had to pray to whatever gods, living or dead, would listen.

Sixty seconds to the ground. Zero chance of survival on impact. Assuming she tried to slow her descent, it might add another fifteen seconds. The numbers might still add up, but every second, they grew closer and closer to a negative outcome.

Isiat grabbed the bell against the ship's superstructure and rang it like his own life depended on it.

"CREW OVERBOARD!" He barked. Fear lanced his voice like a knife against the cold wind.

---

Shadi fell.

This was her choice, and she had made her peace with that. She'd had enough of being a slave, of being property, of being a plaything, a pawn upon the board of powerful people to move and torment and play to their whims.

This was her choice. They would not take it from her.

The wind rushing by in her ears was absolutely deafening, and the ground seemed so very, very far away. However, it was quickly rushing up to meet her and her ultimate fate.

Just a few moments more, and the world's problems would no longer be hers. The seconds ticked by as she fell, slowly counting them out in her head.

One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four…

Let her father deal with the canine coalition and their bastards. Let her brothers and sisters worry about her family. Let the rest of the world fight their stupid wars and make their stupid deals without her. She was done with the world.

"They only do it once, though, true enough for all of them." Larise's words rang again in her head like a metronome, and her thoughts at once turned to the Coyote mother. She would miss her. Her kids would miss their aunt Shadi. Larise would be so disappointed and sad.

Her thoughts went to her family, to her father, who had been fighting to try and get her back for so long. What would they do when they learned? Would they lay her down in the grove by her mother? Or scatter her ashes to the four winds like their ancestors had once done?

Would Isiat actually stop to collect her body, or would they leave her as a carrion for the scavenger beasts of the desert? Too much inconvenience to stop the massive wheels of the trade from turning over a single dead feline?

She knew the answer even as she asked the question in her mind. The many-tailed idiot fox had all but confessed his love to her. Assuming there was anything left of her to find, she knew that he would come back and search. He would find her, and he would grieve for her loss. The thought gave her no comfort.

Larise would be devastated. Isiat would be devastated. Mack would undoubtedly have had stern words for her, and somehow, she doubted even death would let her escape his lecturing.

They would not take this choice from her. Only She could do that.

And it was a few moments too late now to have second thoughts.

She realized with despair that she had taken the choice from herself.

Shadi screamed. It was one of terror and anguish, of fury that her rational thoughts couldn't have won BEFORE she decided to go and step over the edge.

She screamed for the life she had known. For the sunny spot beside Isiat's bed. For the food that she was delivered, hot baths, care, friendship, and hope. She screamed for another chance, for her haste to be given another chance. She screamed for the good things, tiny as they might seem, that outweighed the bad in the world like a boulder stacked against a feather upon the scales.

She screamed an anguished wail that it had all been for naught, for the despair to have taken but a few moments to win, and for her to commit to taking that one step too far without a hope of coming back.

The ground raced up below her, and she felt absolutely powerless as gravity hauled her towards it without pity or sympathy. She had made that choice herself, and in her heart, in that terrifying instant, she knew that it was the wrong one. Regret and bitter cold from the rushing air made the tears that formed sting all the more.

She screamed her fury and desperation to the world, and the world screamed back, it seemed.

She screamed when hooked talons curled around her midsection and jerked her about sharply, closing with enough force that, for a moment, every bone in her body felt tight and constricted, like they were but a flick away from breaking. She was shaken, and her legs swung wildly as her trajectory changed, and for that night, the god of death was denied his due.

And she screamed again when the massive gryphon's wings opened like a canopy above her, breaking the rush of wind with a loud thunderclap as they unfolded and caught the air, pulling her back away from the ground. She was close enough that she could make out the individual curves of the sand dunes below in the moonlight and see the beast's shadow against the ground as it hauled her away from a fate that had not been destined for her.

Relief, exhaustion, and anguish all washed over her in a total wave of emotion at once. She let herself be carried, for she had no strength left to carry herself now, as limp as if the life had left her in that instant.

Larise's voice rang in her head again, but now she caught the slight mocking undertone in the coyote's words and gleamed an understanding of the real meaning of what the coyote had been saying.

Live to regret it, or die and not, they would only do it once. That was true enough for all of them.

Larise had been right after all.

—————————————

Isiat frantically paced along the uppermost deck of High Fortune. At that moment, he felt utterly powerless, merely a spectator, a fly upon the wall of some apocalypse. All he could do was pace and wait. Surely, there was something, and yet, there was nothing. Just the steady beating of the airship's propellors. The cold rush of wind barely compared to the freezing chill that had seeped into his bones.

His tails, usually so orderly and neat, flicked in a disjointed mess, twitching to and fro like leaves caught in a gale. In the pale light of the moon, it was difficult to see anything. He leaned across the railing carefully, dreading what he might see below.

The ground seemed a very, very long way away.

He had been a moment from calling for Fiacre. The avian was breathless after sprinting from the bridge to the upper deck, up twenty-five floors from the great glass-enclosed cockpit at the very prow of the airship in a mad dash. His beak was open in a pant. He waved his wing a few times, leaning heavily against the railing. The poor harpy eagle wasn't made for sprinting. His very physiology rebelled at the notion.

He paused, for just a second, looking over his employer's stricken face as he tried to string the words together between great, sucking heaves of air.

"They've got her." He panted. "Aft bay. Dropbird… One grabbed her."

Nightshade. Why the hell could he remember the bird's name at a time like this?

Isiat could barely recall later shoving his way past the wheezing avian. It felt as if his feet barely touched the floor as he all but sprinted through the slowly pulsing glow-tube-lit hallways. Just as he reached the dividing lock, a red-scaled arm shot out, intercepting him mid-sprint, and almost clotheslined the many-tailed vulpine.

"Ah! NOT yet, or Mack will have your tails for a coat. Stop. Compose yourself. And -pause- for a moment. What the hell happened, Carcer?" Scion snarled, leaning in. Isiat tried to shove past until Scion's scarlet paws grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall. The dragon met his icy gaze with a warning growl, licks of ember glowing behind his nostrils. He was pissed.

"Let me the fuck go, Scion-"

"I own a not insignificant portion of that girl as well, Isiat. Do not think for a second I am not relieved your feelings for her, combined with the day's events, did not end with my investment throwing herself from the railing. Now COMPOSE YOURSELF." When the dragon snarled, flame licked at the corners of his jaw, and that, more than anything else, made Isiat pause.

He had seen Scion mad before. Hell, he had watched the dragon burn people like the tyrants of legend at his word without so much as a shred of remorse. But never had he seen Scion act like this towards him. The dragon was furious, and he was furious at Isiat. And Isiat, indignant and being held by someone under his employ, mirrored that fury back at the dragon.

"Me?! Do you think I did this?! I wasn't the bastard who whelped the queen! I didn't start a goddamn war or hold her prisoner! You think-"

Scion hit him. A solid right hook that dazed the vulpine from the suddenness of the strike.

It took a moment to collect himself, and then, ripe with indignity, Isiat hit him right back. The dragon didn't even budge. He did growl, though, sincerely unimpressed at Isiat's utter abandonment of any attempt at tactful dialogue.

"I'm your goddamn employer, Scion. Now get the fuck out of my way."

"Not until you pull yourself together! If you see her like this, do you think she's more or less likely to just throw herself over the rails again?"

"She wouldn't even be here if it weren't for me!"

"EXACTLY." Scion snapped and took a step back, releasing the many-tailed vulpine. Even so, he still deliberately kept himself and his loosely unfurled wings squarely between Isiat and the door. Say what one would, but when the dragon set himself to something, he was determined. Regrettably, for Scion, it was also one of the Draconic traits Isiat had inherited throughout his time with the clans.

But for all the things that Isiat was and ever would be, he was not a dragon.

His fury burned out in a pittering of a whine, and he slumped against the wall. Scion was right, as usual. There was a reason he appreciated the red-scaled bastard as much as he did. But in this, he was right. And Isiat hated himself for that fact.

"Yes… Yes, I'm the reason she is here, Scion. I'm the reason she'll stay here as well, as long as she's got the collar on. She's my dancing slave, but would she have been better with those damn dogs? They'd have been the death of her Scion, and you know it as well as I do. They might be yet with this damn pup…" Isiat slumped against the side of the hallway, sighing defeatedly.

"Was I wrong to spoil her Scion? To try and give her what freedom I could?" He asked honestly.

Scion folded his wings at last, his serpentine tale giving a few flicks before he took a few steps over and slumped down beside his employer, a heavy sigh escaping the dragon's scaled lips. He settled beside his friend.

"No, you aren't. But perhaps this was not the time for it either… Patience, Isiat. No slave has ever jumped twice, but there is more going on for her than perhaps even she realizes. And you will have to see that she is fit by the time we reach the clans, for there will be more than one dragon with their eyes upon the little tribal princess-"

The hatch beside them suddenly opened, interrupting Scion's speech and causing them both to turn and look. The dire wolf doctor, Matthew, cast a long shadow over both of them from the humming glow lamps in the wall.

"I've sent Rika back to her cabin with her. She's cold and bruised but no worse for wear, thanks to the damn birds. She's in shock." The ship's chief medical officer wiped his three-fingered paw across his brow and spent a moment adjusting his eyepatch back into place. The ragged scar beneath had always been a feature of the imposing canine, and it was one that he had embraced. He looked down at the pair like a tutor might a pair of disappointing students, but whatever he saw in them, it was enough to make him shake his head and spare them the rod.

"I'll be checking on her throughout the night." He muttered and unclipped a flask of gods only knew what passed for strong to a dire wolf. "Not as if I was going to sleep anyway…"

He took a long swill and, after a moment of consideration, offered it out to Scion simply on the merit of him being closest to the door. The dragon took a swig and doubled over in a coughing fit as he passed off the flask to Isiat.

The liquor burned like Dragonfire going down, and Mack had to seize his flask back before the wheezing vulpine could spill any.

"Take him back to his quarters, Scion. I'll not be having him see her until he's pulled himself together more, and it does no good for the crew to see him in such a state either."

Isiat frowned, looking down at his paws questioningly. Was he really in such a state?

"And yes, you look like shit Izzy." Matthew growled as if reading his thoughts. "You look like you've been confronted by some long-dead ghost of your ancestors. You're pale, and you're still damn near hyperventilating." Mack knelt by his side and jammed two fingers against the vulpine's throat.

Onetwo-onetwo-onetwo-onetwo, his pulse drummed in his ears as the doctor counted. He then frowned, unimpressed with his findings. He shoved the flask back against Isiat's lips and forced another swallow down his throat.

"Back to his quarters, and make him rest." He told Scion firmly, leaving no room for arguing with doctors' orders. Then, to Isiat, he spoke.

"Come see me when you wake. I need to make sure Shadi is settled and check on her… Condition." Mack stood and, together with Scion, helped Isiat back to his feet.

---

Shadi felt numb, the kind of soul-hollowing emptiness that came with no longer knowing her place or even who she was. She dissociated from the world in a way that she had never done before, which would have scared her had she had more conscious thoughts to worry over. She followed the motions without questioning, wondering, or even thinking.

She didn't utter a word the entire time Matthew had been checking her over, making sure that physically, she was unharmed from her… Incident. Even the mention of it made her flinch, the one time Mack had tried to bring it up quietly with her, hoping for an answer, for some understanding. He didn't bring it up again after that and finished his checks before laying her down.

Vaguely, she recalled watching an Alsatian female talking with the Dire Wolf doctor as she faded in and out of consciousness. Her eyes felt as heavy as every other part of her, and that weight on her soul pulled her down like gravity had during-

She didn't think about it. Wouldn't.

Sleep overcame her, a thick blanket of darkness that cast her eyes and her spirit in a shadow as dark as the night sky. She recalled it falling away from her, shrinking until all the stars had compressed to a single point. There was no desert, no High Fortune, no falling, no unwanted bastard child to haunt her. The infiniteness of nothing swaddled her, enveloped her, and cradled her like an old friend, offering their sympathies.

"You'll be alright." She recalled Mack's voice reminding her through the darkness, like an artist's stroke of white painting a streak of distant hope across a black canvas.

Strong talons gripped around her shoulders, a beak, firm and cold, pressing against her nose. A wet tongue slathered across her face-

Shadi awakened, sputtering and pushing away the heavy creature lapping at her face like a stray mutt pining for food scraps.

She blinked a few times, wiping her face clean as reality slowly pulled itself back together from the jumbled mess of her dreams.

She didn't recognize this room. The usually whining pitch of the propellers was deeper here as if she was below them rather than beside them as they sounded in Isiat's quarters. Aside from that detail, the walls here were decorated with sky-blue trim and lighter stained wood. Porthole windows ran along one wall, and her bed had been sectioned off with a curtain that was currently strewn on the floor, pulled down by the giant, quadruped gryphon who was using it like nesting materials.

She eyed the feral beast cautiously, scooting back along her bed until her back touched the wall behind her. The last time she had seen Gryphons, they had been circling around the base of the castle that, if Isiat's spy friend was to be believed, was no more, picking off the bodies of slaves who jumped rather than remain in servitude.

…Much like she had.

She wasn't dead. That much was certain. Death might have had kinder things rather than this cruel irony in store for her than waking up to one of the creatures who had been a constant reminder of what awaited those who leapt from the walls.

As if reacting to the very thought of it, the black feathered gryphon rose up, screeching loudly from a long, raven-like beak as it tossed its head back and spread its wings. Despite herself, Shadi shrunk back even further before the beast.

"Nightshade, down, boy! Dow- And look at what you did to the curtains! Mack is going to have your hide for slippers-oh!"

Shadi didn't recognize the canine at once, but she recognized what she was. Her ears had scratches and divots in them, and the fur around her throat had that unique bent to it that came from too much time spent in a collar, where it never quite grew back in the same. If Isiat had for whatever reason, sold her back to the dogs, this would not be who she woke up to see. The Alsatian was, or at least had been, a slave. She was still on High Fortune then. There were few others who would have kept such a freed slave.

As if noticing Shadi for the first time, the canine raised a paw, pointing at Shadi.

"Wait right there, I'll fetch- ahhh… MACK!" She turned, ducking away into one of the connecting rooms in a hurry. There were some hushed curses and an insistent "Get up lazy bones!" From the next room, there was the clatter of a wooden mug bouncing across the floor and a long grumbling growl that she recognized at once.

The one-eyed dire-wolf stepped into the room, rubbing the sleep from his one remaining good eye with the back of his three-fingered paw. He'd clearly just woken, wearing just a pair of night pants, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes… eye.

Shadi expected him to be mad at her. Disappointed perhaps. Maybe even angry.

She hadn't expected the tight hug that the massive wolf almost crushed her in. His single remaining eye glimmered with wetness as the old, gentle wolf knelt down, coming level with her face. He cradled her like a babe for a very long time before he ever spoke a word, and Shadi, not sure what else to do, simply held him back.

"You about scared another decade off my life, and I'm already grey without that." He laughed. Relief was woven through his words like a thread through a tapestry, finished with a gilded edge of joy that itself couldn't be faked by even the most cunning linguist.

As she roused more, the slow, thrumming rhythm of the airship propellors outside entered her perception. Her ears twitched as she reacquainted herself with the familiar hum of the glow lamps and the distant rumble of the significant engines that kept the airship aloft. In a way, the familiar sounds provided as much comfort as Mack's familiar warmth against her did, and he gave her a tap as he looked at her curiously.

"I said, how are you feeling, Shadi?" the wolf asked her again softly.

"Oh, I… Uhm…" She felt a distant fluttering in her belly. She remembered that awful revelation. Remembered the dread. Remembered the pit of despair that had welled up from within. She remembered the chill rush of air as she took one step too many and-

She blotted them all out by burying her face into Mack's shoulder, sobbing openly.

The great big wolf hesitated a moment before laying his paw along her spine, stroking his three fingers on that hand down her back. Soothing words and shushes left his lips, and in a rare show of affection, he even kissed her forehead gently, like a father would their child, banishing away the hurt with soft reassurances.

"There there, Shadi, it's done with. You're okay now. Whatever comes of it, I'll be here to help you through it all." Mack spoke with a soft whisper in her ear, pulling her tightly against his broad chest. His fur was surprisingly soft, almost like she remembered her own father's being. Despite herself, she nuzzled her cheek into him, seeking the warmth and comfort of his protective embrace.

Mac seemed in no hurry himself to let her out of it either. The shadows on the wall had shifted across the room by the time that Shadi remembered herself again. Warm yellows of daylight had turned to burnt oranges of the waning hours. Mac was snoring gently, his broad muzzle resting across her shoulder. He stirred as well as Shadi moved, pulling back and blinking his single eye to clear the sleep from it.

"Maybe we should get you a meal… I'll have something brought up for us. There's some good spicy beef crap on the lower decks that ought to put some warmth back in you. You'll like it." Mack said with a soft, warm smile. The relief in his expression was still palpable.

Shadi nodded, but when she spoke, her question caught him off guard. She'd thought of a lot… Dreamed of a lot. Isiat's horrified face as she dropped below the edge of the ship felt like it haunted her mind.

"How… How is Isiat doing?"

Mack hesitated. That wasn't a good sign.

"He's… Managing as well as he can."

———————————————

As well as he can was not an inaccurate statement from Mac.

Isiat had slept until almost supper time the next day and most days since, leaving the daily management of the ship in Scion's capable paws. The dragon was a beast of efficiency that was frankly, well, draconian. He was more than capable of it, and when Isiat finally rose each day, the dragon was right there.

Before all else, before he was the overseer of Isiat's operations, before he was a link to the powerful and shadowy dragon clans, before he was a Isiat's employee, Scion, at heart, was Isiat's friend, and that mattered more than the rest of it, at least in the dragon's eyes.

They did not always see eye to eye. Isiat was still pissed that Scion had stopped him from going to Shadi. Scion was still pissed that Isiat was moping like a whelp who'd been told no.

"How is she today?" Was always the first question from Isiat's mouth while he scarfed down a plate of very late breakfast.

"She's recovering. Mack took her to the greenhouse earlier with Larise, and they relaxed for the afternoon. The good doctor has been working with her constantly. She is making better progress than you. At least she has left her room in the last week," Scion pointed out, well, pointedly. The dragon was as unsubtle with his financial keeping as he was with his obvious displeasure at Isiat's moping.

"I confessed that I loved her Scion, and she threw herself from my ship that very night. How am I supposed to feel, praytell?"

"Perhaps some gratitude that she survived? Perhaps, like, say, your investment of time and funding into your little dancing slave is not entirely gone? Perhaps it is not the end of the world, and like it or not, you are a businessman, she is an asset, and you have a fucking job to do. You are the master of a Mass Converyor, employer of slaves and free men both, and one of the most influential traders in the free world who is not tied to any one of the Dragon clans." Scion said with a low snarl, his long, scaled tail lashing with barely contained irritation.

"I expect you to pull yourself together, or so help me; I will throw you off this damn ship just so you don't have to imagine what the poor girl went through. You are heartbroken for a slave rejecting you. She is heartbroken because she is being made to carry some bastard child of her tormentors. Don't be a cunt and add your name to that list she no doubt keeps." He finished with a low rumble that echoed like mountains slowly grinding together over the passage of eons, and it took Isiat what felt like the passage of eons to process the ruby-scaled dragon's words.

"Mack wants you to come and see her this afternoon, by the way. She's up and well enough to stand your presence, he suspects… He doesn't seem to believe she holds any anger towards you. Her situation is unfortunate, but it is not one of our making. What I will say, Isiat, as a friend, is this." The dragon stood from Isiat's desk and the piles of papers he'd been meticulously going over, line by line. He stood before the side of Isiat's bed where the vulpine was sat and, after a moment's consideration, knelt, bringing himself down to his employer's level.

"Be kind, be considerate of her feelings first and foremost, and do not forget to sincerely ask if there is anything you can do to help." The dragon rumbled, to which isiat tilted his head.

After a moment, a faint grin tugged at the corners of his lips.

"Scion, it almost sounds like you're suggesting I spoil her…" He couldn't help but turn that particular observation back against the dragon. It was perhaps the first proper smile he'd seen on Isiat's face all week.

Scion let the cheek slide, at least this time.

"Well, you've already done it since you paid for her. You can't make her any worse for it…"

————————————————————————-

The soft, lofty notes of the violin rang in Shadi's large, fennec-like ears, the tufts atop their tips jingling with ornamental charms and beads as she twisted gracefully on her toes. Her face furrowed in concentration as she tried to remember the steps. For some reason, everything felt fuzzy this morning, and she could not seem to get the sleep from her eyes.

One two three, one two three…

She counted the waltzing rhythm as she bowed, turning and twisting with a grace that seemed unusual for such a short and curvily built feline, but the dancing mistress had picked her out at once for her looks, the much older, greyhound bitch watching her and her dancing partner with a scrutinizing glare. Mistress's whip was uncoiled at her side as she watched Shadi and her dancing partner, a dire wolf they had brought up from the pens, a disgraced officer in their armies, Orez.

"Yes, the dance should flow like a river. Let it move you as you move for it!" Mistress crisply called from the edge of the wooden-floored hall. It simply shone in the summer light that poured in through the large, arched windows on the cliffside wall. Even if she'd wanted to escape, that method wouldn't have worked for her. There was a sheer, six-hundred-foot drop to the bottom of the hill out of them, never mind the carrion gryphons that would have fought over her body before she reached the ground.

She had felt what those claws were like coiling beneath her arms, catching her-

She blinked, pausing in her motions. That wasn't right.

She glanced about, trying to make sense of the inconsistency. No. No, no, no, she'd escaped here. She'd been purchased by a trader, sold by the canines like a piece of meat at the market and-

Orez snarled behind her, his rough paw grabbing her by the collar and forcing her to bend at her waist as he grabbed her hip and yanked her back against his bulging sheath.

"Told you I'd be seeing you soon, cat-" His voice mocked her, sending ice down her spine. Her fur stood on end as she fought back the urge to scream. He dripped blood onto her leg where she'd bitten the dire wolf's fingers clean off. She felt her stomach lurch as he raped her again while Mistress watched on uncaringly.

All that mattered was the dance and that he didn't knot her when it was done. He felt him pumping his seed into her, swelling her belly with a litter of mongrel wolves. Felt him laughing as he harshly ripped his knot from her sex and let his conquest of her drip onto the polished wooden floor, her shame the off-white of trodden snow.

He pushed her to her knees and mounted her like a bitch to conquer her again.

She twisted and thrust up at his neck, her hand closing around the hilt of the little jewel-encrusted dagger that had somehow found its way into her paw.

It found its home in his throat. Orez just laughed, mocking, taunting her.

"You couldn't even kill me right in your dreams." The direwolf grinned as he faded into the breeze, but not before he stepped forward and shoved her backwards off the railing of the airship.

She thrashed against gravity, howling as tears streamed down her cheeks and turned to ice in her fur. She flailed, fighting against its inevitability, against the choice that had been taken from her, that she had taken from herself.

Paws grabbed at her wrists, and a voice broke through the rushing of the wind. It called to her. Grunted as she smacked its owner again in her desperation and fear. It-

——————-

"SHADI!" Isiat's voice. Her owner's voice. The voice of a friend, of her master, of her-

She all but threw herself against his chest, sobbing openly as she held her face against the coarse, smoky-scented pelt of the vulpine.

His paws relaxed from around her wrists, sliding down around her back to hold her tightly to himself. "You're okay. It was just a dream, Shadi."

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, please!" She trembled in his grasp, leaving Isiat's mouth gaping open with shock and confusion. Where was this coming from-

"I'll never be ungrateful to you again! I'll be good, I swear it by the gods please don't send me back there!" She was neatly vibrating out of his arms.

"I'm sorry, master! I'm so, so sorry, please! Don't send me back! Keep me! Keep me, please!" Her voice rose in pitch until she was shrieking, her claws digging painfully into his arms as he fought to physically control the feline from tearing them both to shreds.

"Shadi! Shadi!!" Isiat shouted, raising his voice to force it over her own, his arms straining from the effort of holding her still through the waking terrors of whatever the demons of her mind had conjured.

He winced as her meathook-like claws shredded the silk undershirt he'd picked out for the day. The garment cost more than most of his staff would earn in a month. He didn't even think about that at the moment.

"Claw-claws-CLAWS!" He barked as they found the flesh beneath his shirt as well. Shadi recoiled as if she'd been stung.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean- Don't send me back! I'll be good. I sw-"

"Shadi." Isiat said with as much authority as he could muster in his tone. Immediately, Shadi shoved herself off of him, her eyes wide and truly fearful.

"I'm sorry! I'm so-"

"Shadi. You are okay. Shadi, just-"He grunted, and finally, sick of having his arms turned to confetti ribbons, hooked a finger into the loop of her collar and yanked her into a kiss in order to attempt to silence and calm the panicking feline. Her paws shot straight back to Isiat's arms, and he couldn't stop the wince, waiting for pain.

Instead, Shadi panted hard against his mouth as if she were running instead of kissing her owner. He could feel her heart beating against his chest, pounding out an erratic beat that made no sense, even for a vulpine whose tails operated on a deliberately confusing tempo to keep others from predicting him.

Shadi's was the tempo of a bird in flight, constantly changing directions even as he took charge of the moment, pressing his lips hard against the pretty little feline's own. Shadi's fingers clenched around his upper arms as his tongue nimbly pushed beyond her lips, swiping over her teeth in tongue as she submitted, willingly parting her mouth.

Shadi's panic ebbed like the tide as she simply fell back into what the canines had flogged into her and what the vulpine trader and his draconian partner had taught her.

The words left Isiat's lips as he parted from the kiss long enough to hungrily hiss them out.

"Dance with me." He ordered the little tan and brown lioness with an almost feral snarl.

Neither of them was in a place to discuss things. She didn't want to confront those fears right now. Her heart was galloping as she pushed Isiat's back onto the bed and straddled his waist with a flourished twist to swing her leg up and over his lap.

Even the word itself was graceful.

Dancing.

The very notion was one of passion, of artistry. It was a performance.

Even from a young age, dancing had been a constant part of Shadi's life. As a child, she performed the circle dances of children, holding hands, skipping, and singing, learning the steps as she learned the world and languages.

As a teen, she had learned the dances of her kind, those of the plains tribes and of the other races- the dances of culture and intrigue. The jumpy and simple motions of childhood grew more complex as the dancing became more intricate, but in the same vein, dancing became more of an action of power for her.

As she grew older, she began to perform, both for the enjoyment of the dance and for the enjoyment of others. As the chieftain's daughter, she was expected to display herself to potential suitors from the other feline tribes.

Her dances grew more passionate in their motions, more erotic and primal, calling out to a baser kind of enjoyment, that of the displaying of flesh, of herself as desirable.

Her sister had taught her to use dancing as a tool, to entice and arouse the senses, to draw eyes and attention to her figure, her body. She learned to show her worth as something to be possessed, to be desired and lusted over. She teased and entranced, seduced with her sensual motions, the sway of her tail and the tantalizing flashes of bare flesh hidden beneath her fur. He learned to convince her audience without so much as opening her muzzle.

And then, just as she mastered the skill, the canines had come and conquered her home.

Sex became a dance in her captivity. A way of showing their conquest over her by forcing her to dance their dances when and how they pleased.

The first guard she danced for, she had danced perhaps too well for. The drunken Alsatian had stolen her virginity without even an inkling of how much such a prize might have even been worth, roughly shredding her hymen on his knot. At the same time, he'd fucked the scared and sobbing feline into his bedding, drunk and uncaring. She was nothing but a slave then, after all.

Not content to use her as a common whore in the bed or a simple slave in the stockades, the canines had wanted her to show herself off as a prize. Even they had seen her value on display, a potent reminder to the felines that even their noble daughters were no better than common whores to have their lineage bred from the world.

The Conquest had been their final humiliation of her, a degrading performance of savagery and lust and domination that would more often than not leave the feline performer swollen with bastard canine whelps after as a reminder of their defeat and of their submission to the superior canine species.

She had thought perhaps she had escaped the fate of the other feline slaves.

Their collars had been marked breeder as soon as they'd started showing, and they'd been hauled off to other parts of the castle to serve as the personal whores and breeding slaves of the higher-ranked and visiting lords.

She had danced the dance once they'd forced that drug down her throat. The sickly, insidiously sweet taste still lingered in her mind and in its effects on her body.

Even now, she could feel the tingles of arousal and dampness between her thighs as she rolled her hips on top of Isiat's waist, grinding her naked slit beneath her dress against the bulge in his trousers. A tug of her paws pulled her dress up and over her head, leaving her as bare as she had been back in the castle, nothing but the heavy golden collar around her neck left on her figure.

Her breasts bounced with the rest of her body as she swayed and ground herself against the male beneath her, tangling her paws in her hair and moaning aloud when her master's paws found her hips, guiding her motions as easily as the pilots of High Fortune guided the vessel.

He shifted and stripped down to his fur for the little dancing slave he had purchased as she gyrated in his lap, unknowing of the chain of events this would throw into motion when he'd made that fateful purchase.

She wriggled over the vulpine before hooking a single toe claw into his pants to kick them off the male entirely, baring him as she bared herself to his lustful gaze.

It was a gaze of passion, of need. His paws went from her hips up to caress and cup the stiff nubs of her pink nipples that stuck from the soft brown fur covering her breasts. He rubbed them with his thumbs, rolling the sensitive flesh between a forefinger and thumb each. The soft texture of his leathery paw pads made Shadi's nerves dance under his skilled touch.

After all, her master had been a dancer and knew the motions of this particular dance well. Even his tails kept time with their motions, pattering against the bedding in a way that was both calming and grounding for Shadi. The familiar, off-beat tempos were a balm upon her frayed nerves, soothing her aching heart and racing mind.

Like a fishing ship hauling in its net, he pulled her down until her breasts were pressed against his chest. She let him, feeling his arms as they curled and met between her shoulders in a tight embrace. She was purring against him as he rolled his hips beneath her, searching with his emerging vulpine length for the warmth and wetness between her legs.

He groaned underneath her as Shadi shifted, trying to press as much of her fur against Isiat's own as she could. At the same time, she purred right beside his ear, nipping his cheek and whimpering with need.

She needed this. He needed this. After everything else, she needed to be fucked silly so that her brain could simply reset. She didn't want to think about everything. About the slight rounding to her belly that seemed more noticeable now that she was aware of it. About how tender and sensitive her nipples were, and not just from where Isiat had been rubbing them.

She needed to be ravaged. To be used like a good pleasure slave. To dance the carnal dances until she couldn't move, couldn't speak and couldn't think.

And Isiat just wanted more than anything for Shadi to be alright. The last few days had been traumatic to her, and he'd seen what had become of mistreated slaves who had then fallen pregnant with their owners' unwanted bastards. He murmured sweet nothings to her, probing at her raised and ready tail, searching for her womanhood.

Shadi panted, reaching one paw backwards to curl her fingers around his almost instinctively humping maleness. He stiffened as the warm, gentle embrace of her fingers caressed his slicked length, twitching and spilling his precum into her palm already with his excitement and lustful need.

With a practised motion, she stroked along his length and purred, all nice and low and rumbly so that the male beneath her could feel it while her fingers squeezed and massaged over his shaft before she lowered her hips until she was all but sitting on his waist. Those skilled paws flew along his shaft, smearing the glistening, dappled length until she could feel his swollen knot twitching to get free of his sheath.

With a tug and a quiet grunt of relief, Isiat rocked himself into her paw, letting her palm cradle his knot. She caressed him with the same care that a dragon caressed a bar of pure gold, feeling his heft in her hand. Gripping him by the root to a quiet huff from the male, she angled him until the tip of his length brushed over her moist, silken folds.

The first touch was electric, much like the very first time he had claimed her, so long ago before the canine's castle.

And much like then, she danced with the many-tailed vulpine, and she danced like her life depended on it.

She slipped back onto his shaft and let him enter him slowly, moaning as the male spread her open. She took her time, letting him part her slowly like a flower spreading its petals at the first signs of the spring dawn. Pleasure blossomed in her core like sparks on a lake of fuel, making her mouth open in a deep-chested moan that had stars behind her eyes.

She let herself be lost in the motions of the dance. If it had a name, it was lost on her. The steps for it, though, were not, and she set herself into the rhythm, grounding her spirit and fixing her entire focus on the motions.

It was a dance by the dragons; one was perfected a very long time ago, and she had learned the motions well from a book Isiat had given her in her first weeks aboard.

The illustrations had all been of a slender, long-legged dragoness as she rode her partner like a knight of old riding a charger into battle, hands tossed back behind her head and mouth open in a cry of sensual bliss that was no doubt as much a part of the performance as the rhythmic motions the steps guided her through.

One-two-thrust-one-two-twist

One-two-clench-one-two-lift

The waltzing beat set the tempo for them as she danced, and Isiat caught on quickly, resting his paws upon her hips as she moved and shamelessly used her curvacious body to perform her art.

She was neither long-legged nor slender like the dragoness in the pictures had been. She wasn't slimming with an hourglass figure and perfect tits that fit her like she'd been carved from crystal.

She was short and chubby, muscled and yet plump in her legs and thighs. Her belly was swollen, and the faint roundness of her pregnancy was causing it to stick forward just that little bit more than it would have otherwise if she had not been with cub. Her breasts were already motherly before she'd been pupped, wonderful pawfuls with pink, stiff nipples that poked from her chocolate brown chest fur.

She was chubby in the stomach and her arms, evidence that Isiat had absolutely spoiled her, as Scion had warned the vulpine he was going to.

The dance was not made for a pleasure slave like her, but she made the dance work for her as surely as she worked for Isiat.

If she was doing some of the steps out of order or wrong, the male below her certainly didn't notice. She could feel each time he settled against her core, a fresh splash of heat from his vulpine prick spattering against her cervix.

She took something that had been made for a species other than her own and made it hers. In the same sense, it was a reclamation of control, both over her life, her body, and her very sense of self, with that same clarity that had come over her when she had been falling.

It was in her dancing she knew who she found that sense of self. And with Isiat, she danced a tempo only they could follow, passionate and thrumming like the beating of a mighty bass drum, up into the smooth and sweet notes like a violin being stroked across with the tender caress of a bow.

They shifted with the elegance of the desert dancers in the far east, far abroad in their fancy silks. Their movements were as smooth as the stained glass murals of the dragonholds, with the refined, practiced motions of one of their minuet dances. She rode him with the energy and passion of a foxtrot, movements that went from sensual to lusty to intimate in the space of a meter of their rhythm.

Pleasure blossomed inside of her as she rode his knot like an unbroken stallion, her moans the sweet music that accompanied the other, more lewd and primal noises of their most ancient dance of lust, all of it mixing into a cacophony of lust and desire that had her grabbing his paw and biting down on it to muffle her frenzied cries of passion.

She thought of her own kind and the sultry and sensual dance that she had performed and had learned since the collar had been fastened around her throat by the dogs.

She imagined the Conquest, and the thought seemed to do something to her already fragile state of mind. The dance that had made her this way and gave her belly the slight swell that, even now, Isiat's paws caressed while she rode his hips and filled the room with their moans. She was not just some pretty slave girl to be conquered. Despite everything that had happened to her, she had survived. She had been strong. She had endured slavery, rape, whippings, humiliation, degradation and complete submission to her captors and owners, only to be flaunted before a crowd and fucked for their entertainment…

But before all of the others had had their chance with her, Isiat had come to her rescue, rather literally, and figuratively for her mind as she tried to grapple with everything else.

She read of his kind. Their seed was potent among vulpines. So, too, had she been taken by the Lynx, Marco, and his seed had never been washed from her womb before her dogged captors had forced the sickeningly sweet breeding elixir down her throat, igniting a fire in her belly that had smouldered ever since, even now...

It was perhaps a spark of hope for a fate less worse than siring some canine bastard. She growled as she pulled her master up by his whiskers to meet him in a ferocious and passionate kiss of need. His tongue dragged along her throat as her hips gyrated atop his waist, stirring him inside of her and causing both of their pleasure to rise rapidly until she was crying out and calling her master's name on her gasping breaths.

She peaked with a tensing shudder from her ears to her tail and moaned aloud to the ceiling.

The tempo of their passionate dance increased, becoming more frenzied, more primal, following the pace set by the rapid beating of their hearts together.

Her motions changed as Isiat rolled over with her, pinning her shoulders to the bed. Her master took charge of the dance with a low growl, and teeth closed around her collar as he forced himself deeper until he found himself unable to go any more forward and entirely unable to pull away if he had wanted to.

The vulpine tied her with a feral growl, his voice a sleek and deep-set rumble, asking, nay, demanding her pleasure for himself. Shadi gasped and surrendered to her bliss a moment before her master did likewise.

He snarled his lust into the fur of her throat, moaning her name as heat bloomed inside her belly. Marking her, claiming her in the ways of the very first of her ancestors.

To Isiat, it was simply a restaking of his claim on her, the same way he had unquestionably claimed her that very first night he had seen her dancing and invariably nudged the fates away from the path she had been on as a simple breeding slave of the Canine Coalition.

Above the panting female, Isiat struggled to keep his chest lifted off of her enough that the little cat could breathe, his arms shaking with just that much effort. He felt drained in each and every sense of the word; physically, emotionally, sexually. He was done.

Isiat slipped his arm around Shadi to hold her to him, and then he rolled the pair of them onto their sides, her head resting on his shoulder. His chest still heaving, he kissed her forehead roughly, hugging her warm, soft body to his own.

"You," Isiat panted, "You are going to be okay, Shadi… I'm going to make damn sure of it. I promise." He laid his cheek against the top of her head. He knew she didn't remember his confession of love, but he hoped somewhere in her, she could at least feel it.

She was silent against him, still but for the ragged rise and fall of her chest, her arms wrapped loosely, exhaustedly around him. Her hairline was damp against his cheek, but he kissed her again anyway. She murmured something, and his ears twitched. "Shadi?"

"... What are the chances?" She said again, still a whisper but stronger than before. "What are the chances this cub is yours?"

Her tone made his chest hurt, and he huddled her closer, allowing his silence to speak his opinion for him. "Oh, Shadi… I'm so sorry. I wish it was… truly, I do, Shadi. It would… uncomplicate so much for you."

Shadi said nothing back, breathing through her mouth for several long moments to fight back the miserable wail that was building in her throat. Couldn't he lie to her? Even for a moment?

"I… really am sorry. So sorry I… did that. You must think I'm so ungrateful for everything you've done-"

With as much tenderness as Isiat could muster, Isiat snapped her muzzle shut in his paw, careful not to shut her tongue between her teeth. "Shut up, Shadi. Not another word about it, do you understand? I'm sorry. I'm sorry for your situation… sorry you dance here for me instead of with your sisters down on the plains. I'm sorry they… I'm sorry you are with child right now." Isiat sighed, letting go of her muzzle before he slipped his paw into her hair.

"Your first child should be a joy, brought into the world between you and your chosen husband… I understand, Shadi, you… don't have to explain your grief to me. This fucking sucks." he ended lamely, earning a small chuckle from the tired female in his arms. She finally looked up at him, a watery half smile on her face.

"Still, I won't do that again, I promise… but that means I… have to figure out what to do."

"Tomorrow," Isiat insisted, using his feet to kick her blankets up to his paw and pulling them over the pair. "Right now Shadi? You've got me so tired I couldn't walk back to my quarters if I tried, and I'm not even going to half-ass that attempt. I'm sleeping right damn here with you." He said with a playful but tender rumble in his chest.

"Everything else will still be right here tomorrow, and we can start sorting this mess out then... But tomorrow. For now? Rest with me, right here. I will keep you safe from the dreams." He insisted.

Shadi nodded and pressed her chest into his face without another word, believing him wholeheartedly.

She slept soundly until well past sunrise the next day, still curled in his embrace.