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As the stone road beneath their feet stretched and wound its way through the forest, Sereve began to realize that they must be getting close to the more traveled road that would lead them to the city before meandering further northwards. The unlikely trio of a pantheress and two dragons were continuing their path to the coastal city of Dieril, leaving behind the humid jungles in the basin that was home to the felines. While they had yet to come across any other travelers, the stone paving looked to be at least a bit more used than the path behind them, and the forest around the road was slightly more sparse, allowing the sunlight to stream through the canopy.

Sereve turned to the two dragons, who were walking side by side just behind her, and asked, "We must be getting close to the coastal road, right?"

Both of the dragons turned their gazes towards her, and Sereve felt a slight tingle, as she was still not used to having the attention of such large and powerful creatures. Telus particularly seemed to have a hungry look in her purple eyes, with her pupils slit in the sunlight. Something in the motions of the dragoness's vaguely feline body gave the impression of a creature on the prowl.

In contrast to their intimidating appearances, Kire responded in a mild tone, saying, "We should reach the road by night, and from there it should not be more than a day to reach Dieril. Me and Telus may have to lay low once we leave this road, however. Rumors of dragons around tend to stir up trouble."

At this, Telus gave an indignant huff and said, "I don't see why we should care. If some egotistical self-proclaimed monster slayer thinks they can take on a dragon, they deserve what they get."

Kire rolled his eyes and responded, "Yes, yes, but then the family gets angry and they stir up fear of an attack, and then you have an angry mob on your hands, and at that point no one's getting anything done. It's just not worth it."

"Sometimes I think you're not worth it. It's a good thing you have such a nice cock; that might be the only thing I keep you around for." As she teased him, Telus walked a bit in front of him, letting her shimmering silver scales brush against Kire's side, slithering on his rough red hide as her long, serpentine tail swung beneath his legs, caressing his thighs and belly.

"You're too nice for your own good," the dragoness continued in a sultry voice, "sometimes you should just take what you want."

The silver dragoness walked in front of Kire and Sereve before lifting her tail and allowing it to sway in the air, exposing the light skin of her nether regions and her slit, which was once again slightly puffy with arousal as her purple slit leaked her sweet, sticky nectar.

Although his eyes never left her hindquarters, and despite the erection growing between his legs, Kire's deep voice rumbled, "Not now, we're making good time and we should keep moving. Once we reach the busier road, we'll need to keep our wits about us."

As Telus's tail swayed sinuously, wafting her distinctive female scent towards Kire and Sereve, she put on her best sultry voice, saying, "That's all the more reason to mount me here and now, while you still can. After all, we don't want to be distracted while we're on the main road, and we certainly couldn't stop and take care of this there."

Kire inhaled her scent and licked his lips. Sereve could see his resolve crumbling, but he made one last effort and said, "Still, wouldn't it be a bit rude to fuck in front of Sereve?"

Telus laughed at the feeble attempt and said, "Oh, please, that clearly didn't matter to you earlier. Besides, you didn't mind, did you, kitty?"

Sereve herself was growing more than a little bit aroused at this point, but tried to hide it with bravado, and said, "By all means, go for it. A big strong dragon like yourself shouldn't let her tease you like this; I think you should teach her a lesson."

As Sereve distracted him, Telus suddenly stopped, and Kire bumped nose-first into her waiting privates. Although the dragoness planned it, she still jolted a bit at the sudden touch and stumbled, knocking the nearby Sereve onto the ground.

From here, the panther found herself with quite a nice angle of the dragoness's cream colored skin around her purple slit, as Kire finally gave in. The crimson dragon took one more whiff of Telus's sweet, feminine aroma, before snarling and lunging forward to mount the silver-scaled female.

As his weight suddenly crashed on top of her, Telus bowed her front legs forwards, raising her rump for easier access to her slick entrance. Sereve's eyes locked onto Kire's ridged cock as he began to slowly grind his hips back and forth, mixing his fluids with Telus's as he rubbed his tip across her waiting tunnel. Sereve began to crawl closer to the enthralling sight as Telus's voice reached her ears, teasingly saying, "What are you waiting for, an invitation?"

Sereve positioned herself under the dragons' entwined parts just in time for Kire to snarl again as he suddenly plunged the tip of his crimson cock through Telus's lips. The dragoness gave a gasping laugh at the sudden impact of pleasure, and thrust her hips backwards. The motion dislodged strands of the dragon's mixed fluids, some of which splattered across Sereve's face and chest and leaving wet spots on the panthress's glossy black fur.

The mixture of Kire's warm musk and Telus's sweet, vaguely fruitlike nectar intermingled and assaulted the panther woman's senses, causing her skin to prickle and her ears to twitch back as she flushed with a wave of arousal, and as her hands began to stray lower she noticed some moisture of her own.

The dragons had paused for a moment to acclimate to their intimate embrace, but now Kire began to rock his hips forwards, each of his ridges smoothly sliding inside of Telus, until he bottomed out. He took another momentary pause to savor having his rod buried in warm, welcoming pussy, and his dark, leathery skin that covered his heavy balls resting against his mate, before starting to pull out.

As Sereve watched this, she noted the way that each of Kire's ridges briefly tugged and stretched at the dragoness's nether lips. Each time one slid out of her with a wet schlick, it pulled out more strands of their delectable honey, and as the panther's fingers began to work at her own tunnel she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, catching a few drops of the dragons' mixed fluids.

Kire began to slowly sink back into Telus's depths, but the dragoness was apparently impatient. She let out a whining growl, before grumbling, "Can't you go a bit faster? I want you to fuck me like you mean it!"

Unperturbed, the red dragon leaned forwards and placed a lick on the back of her neck, saying softly, "But you are such a beautiful sight when you're like this; it would be a waste not to take my time."

However, he didn't get a chance as Telus took things into her own control, thrusting her rear backwards and impaling her needy pussy on his meat before he could react.

"Weren't you the one just saying we need to hurry up? The sooner I cum, the sooner we can keep moving."

Kire responded by grunting, "Fine then, have it your way," before leaning forward further and turning his gentle licks into a firm bite on the back of her neck. He then began to thrust faster, pistoning his cock in and out of her tunnel as the purple tone of her labia grew deeper.

The vaguely feline-looking dragoness arched her back and continued to meet his thrusts as he sped up, exhaling in time with every slap of her mate's balls against her wet flesh. She panted out, "Ohh, that's better!" Her claws dug into the soil and her head lowered, eyes tightly shut and ears flat, as her needs were met by the pounding.

Finally, she shuddered when her climax hit, her intense orgasm forcing to moan and gasp. Yet another squirt of her sweet nectar shot from her pussy, soaking Sereve even more with her scent. Sereve had been intently watching as she fucked her wet tunnel with two fingers, while using her thumb to rub her clit. Seeing the dragoness cum, and remembering what it was like to be fucked by that cock, had gotten her right to the threshold of bliss herself.

Apparently she wasn't the only one, though; as Kire thrust into Telus's quivering depths, her walls needily milked at his cock, and he gave one last, deep, push, sinking his cock to the base and pressing his balls against the dragoness.

He roared as he emptied his tightening globe inside of her, splashing her insides with his hot cum. Once again, Sereve recogized the odd, warm, spicy scent as his load overflowed from Telus's pussy.

With a sudden spurt, a fat glob of his warm semen splashed onto Sereve's chest. This last bit of stimulus was enough to send her over the edge, and she used one hand to wipe up a bit and bring it to her mouth, savoring the male's taste and moaning as she herself came. Her aching tunnel clamped around her own fingers, her hips gyrated, and her thighs clenched while frigged herself to the sight of these two massive, majestic beasts as the panting pantheress rode out the wave of ecstasy.

The trio spent a few minutes basking in their collective orgasms as the scent of sex hung in the air around them. In an uncharacteristic display of tenderness, Telus nuzzled Kire's neck and murmured, "Thanks for that; you always put up with me when I get... needy."

Kire simply chuckled and replied, "Don't mention it. It's not like I don't get anything out of it, after all." At this point, the dragon's scaled head perked up a bit as he seemed to recover a bit of focus. "Anyways, we should get going. We haven't lost too much daylight."

While the two dragons prepared to get moving, Sereve piped up. "Don't forget about me, you two got me drenched!"

Telus, apparently having regained her composure, purred, "You do seem to have a knack to getting yourself in sticky situations, morsel. It's your fault you got so close; maybe you should just walk around like that a bit..."

As the dragoness seemed to ponder, Kire growled at her slightly and said, "I'll take care of it," once again exhaling a strange effervescent mist towards the dirtied pantheress.

Sereve was still a tiny bit nervous about being subjected to magic, but she did her best to sit still and let the mist wash over her, and just as before, it left her fur clean and dry.

The day wore on uneventfully, and shortly before sunset the trio finally came to the junction between the old road they had been traveling, and the newer, more maintained coastal road. This was the road she had planned on following originally; to the west was a long, hard journey that took travelers through hot deserts before finally reaching more populated regions on the west coast. To the east, however, was a short trip to the city of Dieril.

The three travelers decided to stop and make their camp a bit off the road. They each settled in before going to find food, the two dragons finding some wild animal to eat raw while Sereve looked for her own dinner, and an hour or two later sat around a fire, idly chattering and enjoying each others' company. Sereve had managed to hunt some sort of flightless bird and cooked it, and was preparing to dig in, sitting on the ground and leaning back against Telus's flank.

Around this point, the topic of the conversation turned to Sereve's people. Telus said, "I must admit, I've never interacted with the felines too much, but I was under the impression that the jungle tribes were a bunch of backwards tree-dwellers that never left their neck of the woods." At this, she swung a dispassionate stare towards Sereve before continuing.

"But that obviously can't be entirely accurate, because, well... here you are, and it's not like I haven't seen other felines hanging around elsewhere. So what's the story there?"

Sereve replied, "It all comes down to the fact that us felines tend to be devoted towards tradition and memory. There's a common fear among us of things being lost; not just objects or events themselves, but our memories of them. So much of who we are is based around what is passed down to us. It started with the basics; the mother would teach the kitten to hunt, so that one day the kitten may grow and do the same to their child."

"Of course, at some point it grew beyond that. Important events were also passed down, and over time ritual and tradition formed to properly remember it. The issue then is that, if you're afraid to forget something, everything gets cluttered. If you revere the past like most of our tribe, then it's great. There's always _something_that needs to be attended to in some form or another."

"But for some, like me, it just feels..." Sereve paused as she grasped for the proper word, her nose wrinkling with distaste as she recalls the endless days of near-mandatory dances and ceremonies and lengthy recitations of stories they'd all heard a thousand times. Finally, she finished her thought. "Bloated.

"Like half your time is just spent doing things for the sake of tradition, just because that's what you're _supposed_to do and no reason besides. So people, mostly young people, leave. It's more or less accepted, because there's no real way to keep people from running off into the jungle. Instead, the tribe tries to make the most of it.

"While most of the cats who leave have the tools at their disposal to survive on their own, some crack under the pressure and end up returning after a few days or weeks. Others will go out into the world, seeking goods and glory to return home with. Of course, they can't exactly bring a wagon home through the jungle, so they're limited to what they can bring back.

"Usually they'll take either personal souvenirs and gifts for the tribe, or treasures which are worth the effort of hauling through the jungle in a pack. The most precious things they bring back, however, are their words. Given how our tribe reveres memory and stories, news from outside and tales from the returnee's travels are lauded, and the day one of us returns from a long trip is often a day of celebration.

"Those stories of the outside world were just about the only ones that I actually enjoyed. When I was a kitten, I would spend hours enraptured by the tales brought back from the outside world, hanging on every word. You see, there are some of us, like myself who really just want to leave. I felt that there had to be something more worthwhile out there, so here I am now."

The panther recounted something of her life among the tribe, and she noticed that, despite her earlier apparent disdain towards bipeds, Telus seemed particularly interested in Sereve's experiences.

However, the night wore on and the fire wore down, and before long Sereve found herself yawning. At this, Kire said, "It'll be an early start tomorrow, to make up for some lost time. It's probably about time for us to turn in for the night." Sereve found herself a relatively flat spot to lie down in, and found she was more tired than she initially realized. Despite sleeping on the ground, she fell quickly fell into a deep sleep.

After what felt like an all-too-short amount of time, Kire was nudging her awake, and soon they were back on the road again. This road was different, however. They were no longer traveling some largely abandoned backroad. Before long, Telus's pointy scaled ears perked up, and she slowed to a stop. "Someone's ahead of us."

Sereve and Kire stopped now too, and Kire looked to the feline and said, "You keep on walking, me and Telus will duck into the woods. If rumors of us being in the area spread around too much, it could cause a stir." Sereve looked around into the trees surrounding the road, before saying, "This forest isn't nearly thick enough, how the hell are you two going to hide here?"

Kire merely chuckled, saying, "Don't worry about us," as his eyes began to take on a golden glow. Telus's eyes also lightened to a lilac as they seemed to be illuminated by some fire deep within. The effect on the area was quick; the air seemed to shimmer and swim as the shade between the trees grew darker and denser. The two dragons stalked into the forest, and despite Sereve's earlier protests they were rapidly swallowed up in the shadows. Shortly after, the effect began to dissipate, but the dragons were still nowhere to be seen.

Slightly uneasy, Sereve began down the road, seemingly on her own. Several minutes passed, but still she saw no sign of those people purported to be ahead. The panther was beginning to wonder if something was wrong, when suddenly she caught a faint sound of wheels in the distance.

She approached a bend in the road, and as she did so the sound of creaking wheels grew and were joined by the clopping of hooves. She cautiously rounded the bend, and found herself only a dozen yards away from a wagon drawn by two beasts that she recognized as Coastal Jieras.

She had never seen jieras in person before, but she had heard of the particular species of chimera before, and they certainly looked distinctive. They were large, bulky, quadrupedal animals that stood a bit over four feet from hoof to shoulder. They had smooth gray skin that clung tight to their rippling muscles, although it got somewhat wrinkly as it approached the head. Their necks stuck straight out from the shoulders, without curving upwards, and their heads, too, came horizontally from their necks. The heads were perhaps the oddest part; the gray skin was wrinkled heavily and hung low off their jowls, giving their faces a droopy appearance. On either side of their faces, they had a fleshy tendril that hung down, like lonely, overgrown, whiskers. They had three eyes that looked like light blue beads set in the head, and they didn't have any distinct pupils or irises.

They jieras looked as strange as any species of chimera, but Sereve knew them to be quite docile beasts that were native to the coasts near Dieril, and they were commonly raised as either meat or beasts of burden. The panther now turned her attention to the covered cart the animals were harnessed to. They were being driven by a bovine, who sat on the bench of the wagon and eyed Sereve suspiciously.

Sereve stepped to the side so that the cart could pass, and gave a tentative wave to the muscular bull, who regarded her a bit more and nodded curtly, before turning his gaze back to his charges. He passed by without further happenings, and Sereve continued on her way.

After another several minutes, the air began to shimmer and twist once more, and Sereve saw the two dragons step into view, as if rounding a corner that didn't exist. Sereve frowned a bit as they approached. When they were near, she asked Kire, "So I've been thinking about this, and... you say you don't have the magic to fly, but how the hell did you do that? And what's more, you've been doing lots of little 'tricks' here and there, isn't using up all that energy slowing down your recovery?"

Kire got a bit of a ponderous look on his face, and he seemed to think a bit before replying, "Well, I suppose it does look odd from your perspective. But what you're forgetting is that the way humanoids use magic, and the way dragons do, are very different. It's so intrinsic to us that it's hard to put into words, but...

"To answer your second question first, we don't actually store all that much magical energy in us. When we shape magic, we're pulling latent energy from the environment, rather than drawing from some finite inner reserve. To use an analogy, you can think of our magic capacity as the flow of water through the a system of pipes. The flow isn't limited by the size of a tank; for all intents and purposes, we have as much water as we need. Rather, it's about how wide the pipes are.

"And when we try to force too much through too quickly, it damages the system. Some pipes may burst, and until they have had time to be repaired, the flow through the whole system is lessened. That's what happened with my little... accident before we met. I was trying to slowly siphon magic out of an area that had built up to a dangerous degree, but it became unstable. Rather than let it cascade out of control, which could have very well harmed you and any other living things in the area, I shaped the magic into a spell which would use most of the energy, but not be particularly dangerous.

"Forcing so much power through so quickly, however, burned out some of my capacity to wield magic. To answer your first question, though, all the spells I have been doing in the meanwhile have been relatively minor compared to flying. Even though it looked impressive, what we did just now was not all that difficult. In fact, it was not even true invisibility. Mind and magic interact in odd ways; it is usually easier to create an illusion than it is to actually do something, and the difficulty of a magical task is somehow affected by how believable the results are. For example, hiding in this forest would be much easier than disappearing from a crowded city street.

"Of course, this is a bit of a simplification - if you want to know more, you'd have to talk to Bear," Kire continued, referring to the mysterious Baeryocit figure that the dragons had mentioned earlier. "Truth is, I don't even really understand the logic behind it all myself, but dragons get an instinctive feel to it with practice, but -"

At this point, a look of slight consternation came over the crimson dragon's face, as he realized he was going into far more detail then was necessary. "Well, anyway, I think you get the point," he finally finished.

After this, there was a time of comfortable silence, interrupted only by small talk, and a few more times when Telus detected passersby, and the two dragons faded into the woods. The trees began to thin out, until eventually Sereve could see hints of flat plains in the distance

Finally, Kire stopped, and said, "This is as far as Telus and I should go. Once you clear the trees, the city will be in sight, and the area in between will be well-populated with farmland. From there, it will be less than two hours before arrive. In the meantime, me and Telus will remain out here as I recover the last of my strength. After this, though, we will need to keep moving. In three day's time, return here, and we will continue on; this time, by air. I know it does not leave you much time to do what you need, but you're a clever girl, I'm sure you'll figure it out."

After saying their goodbyes, the trio split, with the dragons remaining hidden in the forested area and Sereve moving onwards to the city. Despite the dragon's confidence in her, she was intimidated by the task at hand. She needed to get supplies, such as some more practical clothing, and some rations that would be suited for travel. But she'd need money, and she wasn't exactly sure how she was going to get it.

And all this was ignoring the fact that she'd never actually been in a city before; she had some idea of what to expect from tales she had heard or read in books, but it was still an unfamiliar place.

As the pantheress drew close to the city, she started taking in the details that were less apparent from further away. The city had tall, sturdy looking stone walls around it, yet the gates along the main road were wide open, with only a single guard keeping watch from a squat tower that peered over the wall.

Wooden gabled roofs were visible beyond the wall, as were a few taller stone brick buildings, the most notable of which was a large house, or maybe a small castle, that looked to be ornately decorated. Sereve also began to hear the low hubbub of activity, and took in the scent of baking bread, along with some less desirable smells.

When she finally reached the gate, Sereve glanced at the guard in the tower. While the guard's face was hard to make out due to the distance between them and the shadow of the hardened leather cap, there was no mistaking the long, fluffy ears of a chinchilla; probably a woman, based on the build. The woman seemed to be attentive, but other than a cursory glance paid Sereve no mind as she entered the town. Apparently, the flow of traffic in and out of the city was not particularly restricted.

Sereve passed through the gate and into the city, and quickly found herself lost in the flow of civilization and surrounded by a wide variety of species, many of which she'd never seen in person before. She wandered the city, taking in the sights and sounds as she followed the flow of traffic and quickly found herself in some sort of market district, full of a variety of shops, ranging from tiny produce stands to lavish, glass store fronts displaying treasures that most people could never hope to afford.

The whole street was filled with people, and around the more densely crowded areas Sereve found herself needing to push through the press of bodies; not that anyone was giving her much trouble. Sereve was slightly tall even among felines, and so towered over many of the smaller species. As she made her way through the crowd she noticed several of the people she elbowed past shooting her strange looks, ranging from alarm, to curiosity, to more than a few glances of barely veiled lust.

Despite the bravado she showed when she was alone in the woods with Kire, Sereve was starting to realize how much her comparatively skimpy clothes set her out in this crowd.

The largest portions of these people looked to consist of rodents and bovines, which matched what Sereve had heard of large urban centers. There was also a handful of felines mixed with the more typical crowd, which wasn't too surprising given the city's proximity to their homelands.

Feeling vaguely eased by the familiar presence among the crowd of unfamiliar faces, the pantheress sidled up to one of the felines in order to try and get her bearings. This feline was a sharp-faced cheetah man decked in what Sereve now recognized as the guard's hard leather armor. He leaned against a corner in a little alcove, where he could keep an eye on the crowd without immersing himself in it.

The cheetah cracked a slight grin as Sereve approached, and he spoke with the tone of someone who never really learned how to keep things professional. "Looking a little lost there, need help with anything?"

"You might have figured this out already," Sereve replied with just a touch of sarcasm, "but I'm from out of town. I'm only here for a couple days, but I'm looking for a way to get a bit of money before I go. Is there anyway you know that I could get some coins quickly?"

The cheetah's grin widened a bit further, giving him a boyish appearance despite his adult face. "Easy come, easy go, eh? You wouldn't have any shady business in town, would you?"

Sereve was now cracking a bit of a smile of her own in the face of the guard's irreverence, and said, "I'm not planning on breaking any laws while I'm here, if that's what you're asking. Honestly, I'm just looking to get some more... suitable clothing at the minimum."

At this, the cheetah couldn't quite conceal his downward glance as his eyes quickly scanned her body. As he regained his composure, he flicked his gaze back upwards, in time to catch a stern look and a raised eyebrow from the panther.

He said, "Sorry, looks like my eyes got away from me again. You know, when you're living in the jungle with all the other cats, you kinda take it for granted, but after a while in the outside world a guy really starts to miss that fashion sense, if you catch my drift." Despite his apology, the cheetah's cocky grin remained on his face. "Anyways, did you have anything particular in mind?"

"Well, I'm a good hunter, if there's any game in the area worth anything." At this, the cheetah shook his head. "I know how to use some magic, but not anything particularly impressive."

The cheetah shook his head once more, and replied, "Even if the Magician's Guild wouldn't be irate about some nobody horning in on their turf, you probably couldn't beat their prices anyways. They got a system, and no matter your views on the politics, you can't argue that they aren't efficient."

"If that's the case, I'd imagine that my limited grasp of alchemy wouldn't be helpful either..." Upon hearing this, however, the cheetah's ears perked up.

"Now that may be a different story - your own alchemical talents, sure, but the ingredients? I'm no potion brewer myself, but the way I've heard it, certain plants have been scarce lately. The surroundings of Dieril have been picked clean, but there's still not enough to meet demand - especially for the plants that are more common deeper in the jungle."

Sereved processed this, and then reached to her satchel and beckoned the cheetah close. She listed off the ingredients she had, but the cheetah interrupted her midway through, becoming serious in an instant: "Wood-witch orchids? Ah, and here you said you weren't doing anything shady. Well, it's not actually illegal I guess, so it's none of my business."

Sereve furrowed her brows, and said "How are wood-witch orchids shady? It's the key to one of the easiest restoratives there is, even I can make something useful with -"

The cheetah cut her off, "Ah, but you can also make a deadly poison with it."

Sereve looked even more confused at this. "Well, yes, but it's not really worth the effort. There are easier poisons to make, and better uses for the flowers."

A knowing look came over the cheetah's face, as he said, "And that's where the politics come in. You see, there's a pretty wealthy group that's trying to get them banned, and they're already taking their own questionable methods to cut down on transport within the city. Trying to push that they're somehow a menace to society. 'Course, everyone knows they're full of shit and they really just want everyone to buy their own stuff instead, but the group has money, and, long story short, most 'legitimate' herbologists are no longer stocking wood-witch orchids."

The cheetah's sly grin returned once more, as he said, "The City Watch is more or less in this group's pocket, so I'm not really supposed to do this, but... as a favor from one cat to another, I'll give you some helpful directions. With the amount of orchids that you have, you stand to make a pretty penny, enough I'm sure to buy as many clothes as you need. Hell, I won't even ask for a consideration for myself. Way I see it, you're doing the people of the city a favor. Of course, if you did want to tip your guide, I won't turn it down."

And so the cheetah led her off, away from the well-traveled areas to the seedier back alleys, which twisted back and forth between houses, dilapidated old taverns, and various small businesses which were necessary to the people of the town, but not quite glamorous or lucrative enough to afford some of the limited real estate on the main market street.

Eventually, the two felines came to an old shop, lacking in windows to let them peer inside. In front, however, was a well carved, yet worn-looking, sign, proclaiming this to be "The Crone's Cauldron." Sereve's cheetah guide pushed open the door, and a bell rung, although it failed to sound cheery in the slightest. The cheetah held the door for Sereve, beckoning her to enter the dimly lit shop.

Despite some misgivings regarding the whole situation, Sereve walked through the threshold into a world of poorly lit shelves cluttered with ingredients, contraptions, and stoppered bottles of varicolored fluids, few of which seemed to match up with the nearly illegible labels hand-scrawled labels placed on the edge of the shelves. What little lighting was there was provided by what looked like glass bulbs of some sort, that seemed to be filled with some sort of luminous liquid or gas.

Sereve glanced down the aisle, and saw a robed figure sitting in a chair behind an equally cluttered desk, leaning backwards precariously. Their face was covered in a hood, and it was difficult to make out any details in the dim lighting. The figure stirred a bit as they approached, and more when the cheetah called out, "It's pretty dark in here. Shouldn't you be doing something about that? It can't be good for business."

A soft, yet bored-sounding feminine voice replied, saying, "I'll do it later, it doesn't really matter. I'm not getting any new customers anyways, and the only people that come in are people like you that won't be turned away from their favorite establishment by something so trivial as some dim lighting." The figure then leaned forward in her chair and stood up, taking her hood off as she did so. This revealed a surprisingly young looking rat woman. She had a lithe figure, broken up by soft curves. Her fur was midnight-black, sleek; extraordinarily glossy and impeccably groomed, despite stereotypes of certain rodentfolk being unclean. Her eyes had pale pink irises, the likes of which Sereve had never seen.

The pantheress spoke up, saying, "You don't look like a crone to me."

"Yes, yes, I inherited the place and crone is more of a title than a descriptor." The rat rolled her eyes and sounded even more bored than before at Sereve's apparently unwitty comment, before turning her attention back to the cheetah. "You don't usually bring guests, Baran. Who's this, a... special friend?" The rodent somehow made this innocuous statement sound exceedingly suggestive as she glanced up and down Sereve's body.

The cheetah, Baran as the rat had called him, replied, "This is," the cheetah started as he trailed off. "Now that I think about it, I never actually got your name. How ungentlemanly of me."

Sereve didn't point out that she hadn't asked his name, either, as she introduced herself.

"The name's Sereve. I'll let it slide, we hadn't met for that long."

"How gracious of you," the cheetah replied sarcastically. "Sereve, this is Mraviel. Mraviel, Sereve."

Mraviel said, "Pleased to meet you. I doubt Baran told you who I am, given his tendency for dramatic displays. I'm an alchemist by trade, as you can hopefully tell, but more than that I consider myself someone who gives the people what they need, rather than what certain figures say they need. I like to think of myself as a guerrilla pharmacist, and if I make a bit of coin along the way, well, all the better. But you still haven't answered the question."

Baran's face started to crack into the same grin Sereve had seen earlier as he answered. "As for who she is, I think that _our_special friend might be more apt. You'll understand when you see what she's brought for us." He gestured for Sereve to come closer, and she did, opening the pouch as she did so.

Mraviel watched, a bit of boredom dropping off her face as she eyed the pouch. "A gift? For me?" She leaned forward to look inside the pouch, and as she saw the contents her breath caught in her throat. Her expression changed to one of surprise, and then of glee.

"Fuck, this is... This is fantastic! Tell you what, since you seem to be new here, and Baran likes you, I won't even try to scam you; I'll give you a fair price for all of them." Over the course of the next hour or so, the rat woman got to work, carefully inspecting each flower for damage, weighing it, and sorting them all out by some inscrutable pattern.

She moved nimbly and precisely, her small hands gently turning each flower over in turn with the gaze of a talented alchemist. As she did this, she got out a parchment and began writing down notes in one column in a cryptic shorthand, and tallying figures in another column.

When she was finally finished with the thorough examination, she turned both herself and the parchment to Sereve, smiling just as wide as she had before, and totaled up all the numbers, cautiously double-checking each operation. Finally, she named the price she was willing to pay, and Sereve's eyes widened at the exorbitant sum. She looked askance at Baran, who simply said, "You really didn't know how much these are worth, did you? She said she'd give you a fair price, and I know Mrav isn't one to turn back on her word so easily."

At last, the rat woman counted out the coins she owned to Sereve before finally sitting back, apparently exhausted from the excitement. She closed her eyes for just a brief moment, and then snapped back to attention.

"Alright, I'm done for the day."

Baran frowned at this. "Aren't you open for another hour or two?"

Mraviel waved a hand lazily, dismissing the cheetah's concerns. "Fuck it. This has put me way ahead of projections, and barely anyone else has been here today. First thing tomorrow, I'm gonna put these two work, but I can afford a little extra time off today. C'mon, we're going to get some drinks. First round's on me."