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The dune sea, much like the coastal sea, was as endless and featureless as it was fathomlessly large. It extended in all directions to the horizon and beyond, with ever-shifting dunes rising and falling with the winds like waves upon the ocean, occasionally breaking against a particularly strong gust that was felt even aboard the High Fortune, sailing the trade paths far, far above. Any signs of civilisation were far behind them, and far ahead of them, far beyond the sight of mere mortals.

Supposedly, there had once been thriving cities all across the dunes, of ancient civilisations far wiser and more broad spanning than any that currently inhabited the land. Supposedly, some stories said, they were the ancestors of dragons, but Shadi doubted that very much.

Dragon's were notoriously hard to kill. The people who had once lived here, on the other paw, clearly had not been. If anyone had once lived out here, they, like the ancient giants, were no-more than stories now, fantasy tales to awe children and fools in taverns. They were all dead. If they were so wise and clever and advanced, why then, were there none left? They had simply been superseded by better-adapted species, and their bones and ruins left to the ages.

Perhaps, she mused, that would be the fate of her own kind. The only news she ever seemed to hear of the canine offensive against her feline kin was bad news. Villages she knew would be no more when... If... She corrected herself, she ever returned to her home. She had her doubts about if there would be a home left to return to.

At least this far up, she could simply enjoy the warmth of the sun without getting a mouthful of dust every time she took a breath. They had flown straight through a billowing sandstorm that had delayed their travel by two days while the crew worked around the clock cleaning sand from every nook and cranny on the ship. That was when Isiat had finally ordered them higher, and now...

The mere thought of him still perplexed her. She had spoken no more than a handful of courteous words to him since he had revealed his secret to her in the form of an ugly slave brand upon his thigh. Not any slave brand mind you, but one of Royalty. He'd been a pleasure slave just like her, and now he kept her and used her as he himself had once been used. It felt like a vicious cycle, a snake forever biting its own tail.

It felt wrong to her. Surely someone who had been through it themselves would never perpetuate such a cycle? Even after Scion's attempt of explaining, it still seemed such an alien concept. Buying and owning slaves to free them? Paying them even! What sort of mental leap of faith had it taken for him to think that this was a fair and just solution?

"I know that look girl. Stop it. You're brooding, I can tell." A soft, feminine voice behind her made her start, her fingers clenching the railing until her knuckles were white with the force behind them. The coyote, Larise, stepped up and leaned her back on the railing next to her, brushing a messy strand of hair from her face. The gesture was futile. The breeze kicked it back against her sandy muzzle a second later.

"I'm not brooding. I'm... thinking." Shadi tried to cover herself, the little earthy coloured lioness lied, her bottle brush like tail flicking once to send a cloud of dust dumpling overboard, but the coyote had spoken true enough. Every day for the past two weeks she had come up here to think as they sailed above the dunes, and every day, her thoughts had gotten her nowhere.

"Well, your thoughts are doing an awful lot of brooding then. Here-" The pretty woman handed Shadi a leather shoulder flask of water, which she drank from gratefully. The coyote had proven herself a friend true enough. Shadi may have even been beginning to like her.

She paused, looking at the ground far below, and a question popped into her head, the words leaving her mouth before she could stop them.

"You've been here long enough. Do any of the slaves he buys ever..." her eyes went from the railing, trailing over it and to the expanse of nothingness below. Larise choked on her water, coughing to clear her lungs.

"Don't tell me you're-"

"No, no. I'm not... yet at least. Just, a random thought to have. Call it curiosity." Shadi tried to reassure her friend. It didn't work very well.

"Uh-huh. Last time I heard, that killed your kind. Yeah, there's been a few, usually just after they get here. They think Isiat is running a charade aboard the ship, and figure they're better off with a long drop and a sudden stop. They only do it once though, true enough for all of them..." Larise gave a dark humoured laugh as if amused at some inside joke.

"And you?" Shadi's mismatched irises met the coyotes own. She shrugged, and sidled in closed, pressing herself against Shadi's side before giving the short lioness a soft peck on the cheek.

"Thought about it enough, but once I spoke to a few people I knew it was as real a freedom as I was likely to get. Besides, he pays well enough. I'm fed, clothed, housed, employed, and my children don't have to start their lives by having their collars sized." She sighed softly and took another swill from her flask. There was a dark look in her golden eyes, like a cloud passing before the sun.

"I was in a canine whorehouse before Isiat brought me aboard. Too 'impure' to fit usefully into their ideal world. I'd had three cubs already, never saw any of them... Do you know what they did to the whores who tried to run away?" She asked rhetorically, and Shadi knew at once there was an unpleasant answer forthcoming.

"They cut their feet off so they couldn't do it again. Compared to that? This place might as well be a fucking paradise. It's safe. My cubs are safe, and dead gods help anyone who threatens that. Isiat killed a man for trying to force me off the ship with him. That fancy sword of his isn't worn for decoration." She swilled the water around in her muzzle, before spitting over the railing.

Shadi nodded in agreement, her face hardening at the memory of Orez, and the dull, shocked expression the moment Isiat had run him through with the slender blade. It still made her shiver to think how close a thing it had really been, but... Had it really? The web's of deceit were thick when it came to the exact circumstances of her 'rescue'. She didn't like pondering them overlong. Too much of is made her feel like she was merely a pawn in a much, much larger game, but yet every time she got a glimpse of just how large, it terrified her.

Larise prodded her gently, snatching her back before she could start brooding again.

"Hey, come help me and have lunch with the kiddos... maybe afterwards we can sneak back to your cabin while they're all taking a siesta and find a better way to distract you." Larise licked her lips with a look Shadi was all too used to seeing on males faces when they looked at her, and it made her laugh, brightening her spirits even just a little. If being desired by the coyote bitch was the worst of her problems today, well...

"You're terrible." She laughed but followed along anyway as they navigated the labyrinth of corridors that made up the underdecks of the high fortune.

"And you not entertaining Isiat personally for two weeks had helped take a substantial sum off my debt, so giving you a proper bedding is the least I can do to thank you!"

---

"...Larise's debt is still 300 Draskars." Scion commented bluntly from Isiat's desk while the many tailed male made his usual show of flashily swinging about his sword, chipping away at the chair he used as his sparring partner.

"As it was the month before, and as it will be next month, and the month after that. She knows exactly how much she owes." Isiat huffed between slashes, pivoting on his tip-toes like a graceful dancer, flowing through his recital of death. The blade whistled with steel-song as it cut the air.

One two three, one two three four five six.

One two three, one two three four five six.

Use an unusual tempo to your strikes. Swordplay flowed like a river, speeding up, slowing down, twisting, shifting, ever moving. Once your opponent caught the rhythm of your strikes, you became easier to read, to anticipate...

He lunged and twisted into a furious flurry of blows that hacked splinters of wood from the armchair's backboard as his razor-edged blade made short work of the cheaply constructed furniture.

Onetwothreefourfivesixseven- onetwothreefour!

He shouted as he embedded his rapier to the hilt in the back of the seat, huffing and panting from exertion. Scion helpfully poured him a crystal glass of ice water from a matching decanter on his desk. He gave a sarcastic nod towards the impaled seat.

"Yes, the chair is very dead now. I know she knows because I keep telling her. You can't keep giving her advances, especially in Draskar. Pay her in the ship currency if you have to indulge your soft spot for her, or hell, all those Lupar we have in hold three, but-"

"No. She's sending it to her eldest abroad. Keep paying her what she's allowed to request when she requests it. She will keep her collar until she decides she wants to earn that last three hundred Draskar. Simple as that." The vulpine paused, wiping his forehead down with a dry rag before he chugged the entire contents of the glass in one go.

"It's your money, but..." The dragon grumbled, rolling his eyes. Isiat laughed at that.

"Yes, yes it is, and I pay you to keep track of it, not question the why behind its goings." Isiat quickly cut him off. It wasn't a discussion he was willing to entertain. He made good on his word, and Larise had struck that deal a long while ago. He wasn't about to go back on it.

"Yes, well, while we're speaking of your poor investment choices, how's that little feline slave of yours going?" The barbed comment was a thinly veiled cheap shot to Isiat, and he frowned, setting his glass down heavily on the tabletop. The sunlight from outside set rainbow reflections scattering over the felt cover.

"She said she needed time. I'm giving it to her. We're still what? Two weeks from the forum, delays notwithstanding. I'm sure she'll have lots of time to resolve whatever conflicts she's having." He nodded, though even as he spoke the words, he knew it was a lie, and worse, he knew that Scion could tell also.

"Or she'll have time to find a good job in the bakeries, and never speak to you again. It was an unnecessary risk showing her that brand, Isiat. It makes you look like a hypocrite, me look like a fool for not turning you in, and it undermines the respect she should be showing you for saving her life." The dragon was as close to an actual outburst as Isiat had ever heard him, all without raising his voice or changing his tone a single octave to get his point across.

So his pride was hurt then? Isiat didn't give a shit.

"She deserved to know." Isiat started, only to be interrupted by an incredulous snort from the dragon.

"And if she tells other slaves of it? The sheep do not need to know the Dragon was once one of them. It is enough for them to know that the Dragon is, and that is all that matters." The dragon scolded him. Isiat just gave a weary sigh.

"She's been through enough, and honesty is a better policy long term. I expect we'll see her earn her returns once we reach the oasis conference. All will be fine. She just needs time. How many slaves do no work at all for their first month when they come aboard after all?" He laughed off the dragon's scepticism, but Scion ignored the question entirely, focusing on something else the vulpine had said.

"Long term? You do plan on returning her to collect her father's offered reward still, correct?" The red-scaled drake was sitting straight up now, his golden eyes homing in on Isiat like a hawk spying a field mouse. Isiat hesitated for a scant heartbeat beneath his scrutiny. It was enough.

"Of course I do! Don't be silly Scion! But that will be almost a year of travel before that point. After all, we will have to locate him in the meantime, and figure out the best path without outright detouring..."Isiat waved his paws about as if to display what a jumbled mess it would be to figure out the logistics. He was unfortunately bad at hiding the truth from Scion however, the dragon able to see clean through the vulpine's obfuscation. The misordered twitching of his tails gave him away.

"You've got feelings for her, don't you! Don't tell me you plan on trying to keep her aboard..." The accusation was as blunt as they came. Isiat stammered over himself and prayed that his fur hid the awkward flush on his cheeks, not that the dragon needed to see that to tell.

"She's a good soul, Scion. Nothing more. It's strictly professional. Once she's paid off her debt to us, she'll be free to do as she pleases." He nodded firmly, categorically denying the dragon's suspicious hunch. He met Scion's gaze with a steely one of his own that he'd used to stare down many a person who confronted him before. It didn't work. At all.

"Just don't be a fool about it. We're here for the coin, remember? That was what we agreed." The dragon let a curl of smoke roll from his nostrils as he sighed.

"We're still here for the coin, Scion. We always have been, but she presents... an opportunity as well. Just trust me with this. I know what I'm doing, and right now, it's not upsetting the pretty dancing girl any more than she already is." He held his palms out in a gesture of peace, before retrieving his sword from the chair, pulling it free with a tortured squeal of metal on wood. He slid it back into its scabbard with a rasp. The elegant blade was dragon forged steel. It would never require sharpening in his lifetime.

"I want her to be an asset to operations while she's aboard, not just another pretty thing strutting around above deck. She's awfully clever when she puts her mind to it, just like me." He gave the dragon a cocky grin.

Scion did not share his enthusiasm.

"If that's how you want to describe yourself, fine. But you need to speak with her, or I will." The dragon delivered his ultimatum, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

"Oh, fine fine. This afternoon I will. Promise." Isiat finally relented, lazily running his index finger across his breast, making an X over his heart.

"Happy now?"

The dragon grunted and paced over to the window, looking out across the vastness of the dunes.

"It's going to rain this evening. Tomorrow at the latest. You may want to move your schedule up so that you actually speak to her before then." The dragon commented almost as dryly as the air outside.

Isiat blinked for a few moments, before laughing aloud, his tails flickering too and fro. Scion was many things, but a keen meteorologist he was not. But, he was right in one thing at least... several one things, as it would happen, but sure enough, he did need to speak to Shadi properly, and figure out just what her plan was going forward. While technically, he could always cite her contract, that was a path he hadn't used yet on any of his slaves, and he certainly wasn't about to start now.

A reputation was an easy thing to cripple with so much as a single misstep, and his was a thin sheet of ice perched on a knife's edge. He couldn't even begin to imagine the damage it would cause among the indentured crew, let alone elsewhere. He didn't want to imagine it, and so, the simplest solution to that was that he didn't.

When he'd collected himself though, Scion was staring at him, as if he'd just told him the sky was blue, and the vulpine had been disbelieving despite being able to see it right infront of his own eyes.

Dragons worked in some strange ways, he concluded, and held up his paws.

"Alright, alright. I'll take care of it. Let me go find her then..."

---

High Fortune was a very, very large ship. At no stage, however, had Isiat ever considered downsizing his flying city for a fleet of a more manageable size. For one, he didn't completely trust anybody else to not simply fly off into the sunset with his merchandise, or deal with arranging communications from vessel to vessel. Besides that point, however, the only other airships ever remotely near this size were the comparatively ancient Pensive class airships, still largely used and manufactured by a collaboration of different metalworking tribes of prey species far in the mountains beyond the realms of the dragon clans.

The High Fortune, were she completely hollow, could have fit over thirty of them within her hull, fully loaded, and still maintained optimal efficiency. As the common adage went, 'dragons did it bigger and better than anyone else'. There was a reason he clung to his ship so protectively.

His dark-furred tails swished as he walked down a corridor between decks, the glow lamps set into the ceiling pulsing slowly as if to the heartbeat of the mighty ship. The dull, tempoed thrumming of the vast arrays of propellers outside kept a steady rhythm with his footsteps as he approached her room.

He stopped with his paw outstretched to knock when a gentle laugh from the other side of the door made him pause. His ears perked, quickly swivelling forward as he leaned in close, pressing the red-furred cup of one flat against the wooden surface. The next thing he heard made him grin.

"... you're lucky none of the ones in that castle put a whelp in you. After the first one, I had to start taking a blend of goat's rue and a few other herbs just to keep my tits marketable. Of course, most males just play any hole is a goal, but..." Larise, he recognised the coyote's voice instantly, giggled. There was some shuffling about, followed by a wet popping sound and a muffled, feline moan.

"Ahhh... I don't plan on giving anyone any pups until... well after I've gotten this damn thing off my neck and settled down at home again." Shadi groaned into her pillow it sounded like and listening closely, he could hear the soft, rhythmic creaking of the bedframe as it shifted beneath the weight of the two females.

One two creak~ one two creak~ one two moan~

He rolled his eyes, huffing through his nose softly; an amused little snort at his own misfortune. Well, so much for that plan... though perhaps if he simply barged in... no, no. That wouldn't do. Even this act of listening in on them wouldn't stand up under scrutiny as anything but the disruption of privacy it was.

"That's it- Ahhh~ right there, mmh. Fuck..."

Their breathing was getting heavier by the moment, and quickly, he peeked back down the hallway to make sure it was still deserted, before adjusting his trousers and putting his ear back against the door. For want of a peephole, he mused, still grinning.

"Soon enough girl... you're clearly his favourite. Just give him a show like this and-" The coyote's voice trailed off, lost behind a sudden yap that was closely followed by a loud moan and several long moments of panting afterwards, neither of the females speaking a word. Isiat grinned, knowing exactly what had happened.

"Mmmhh... Fuck, and I used to think his tongue was so good. You could give him a run for his coin." Larise moaned, audibly fingering the feline with quick, rapid strokes of her paw if the wet sounds coming from inside the room were anything but a dead giveaway. It didn't take long until Shadi's own feline roar of climax filled the room to rival the coyote,'s own peaking barks.

Then silence. He began to pull away when he heard shifting, and Larise spoke up again.

"He's really not a bad person. The bad ones beat their slaves, treat them as scum, property, less than that even. There are a dozen other slave families aboard. He married three of them himself. He is a good, kind soul... even you can see that, you just don't want to because, in your head, slave owners are all bad. It's the way of the world, but he's trying to change that, even if it is just his little corner of it." Larise spoke the words softly, and Isiat felt himself tensely holding his breath as he waited for Shadi's response.

She sighed after a long moment, drawing the lengthy pause to an end.

"I suppose... He saved my life before he actually purchased me... he and Scion both schemed a fair bit to even make the canines agree to sell me to him. I don't see why-"

"You're beautiful and sweet, and most importantly, great in bed. And you have the skills he needed. If you think you're going to be busy entertaining the blue-bloods with the captain and his deals, imagine how busy it will get for me and the other working girls below deck! Heck, at the end of these conferences, I could fill a bath with the coins and soak in it!" Larise laughed, her voice like a cackle of dog song within Shadi's quarters.

"So why haven't you just paid him off then and gotten rid of the collar?" Shadi asked, and Isiat could hear the frown in her tone. There was another, longer pause.

"Truthfully? This will probably sound weird, but..." There was an awkward pause as the coyote formulated her response, and he could imagine her scratching her neck just below the copper collar as she did.

"I like the collar... I didn't do well on my own with freedom. It's overrated, too easy to make stupid decisions with nobody to check you when you're on your own. That's how I ended up in one in the first place. Made some poor choices, wrong crowds, and then before I know it, my 'mate' at the time is dragging me off to market to pay off his own debts... This way? I can do what I please on board, and nobody will ever, ever, sell me out again. Nobody is going to storm in and take my cubs, and nobody is going to lay a paw on me if I don't want them to. Plus, I can just cash out anything I do earn. Isiat is deliberately holding my debt until... until I think I'm ready for it." She confessed.

Isiat turned, and went back along the hallway, heading for one of the mess halls, his tails swishing behind him. He'd have the chance to speak with her, but later. Preferably over a good meal and wine.

---

Shadi sat there, the thin blanket pulled up over her hips while Larise rested, the naked coyote's head between the lioness's soft, perky breasts. It was the most natural thing for Shadi to run a paw through her hair comfortingly.

"So, you just... what? Don't want to be free? Is that it?" She was still trying to wrap her head around the sandy female's explanation. It made no sense to her at all. All of the time Shadi had spent in the mountaintop castle, she had dreamed of nothing but her eventual freedom when it came. And aboard the ship, while a great deal closer to that goal than she had been, still, was not realised in full.

The thought of simply leaping through the open arch windows of the dance hall had been the closest she had been to true freedom, but even then.. she didn't understand why her friend would agree to keep selling herself into slavery, into a collar! Especially when she was so close to earning her release.

"No, I do, just... when I'm ready for it. What would I do with freedom right now? Here, I'm fed, my cubs are fed... I have everything I would being free, but I would have to find them myself without this." She looked up, tilting her head to indicate her own collar.

"I wouldn't have a half dozen trusted friends to watch over my kids, I wouldn't have a ready meal for them unless I cooked, I wouldn't have a house unless I went out and brought one. And what would I do if some greedy males came knocking again and found a bunch of kids and a single woman alone in her home? Then what? No... here is much safer. Isiat has promised to reserve me a lot aboard the ship, but it's expensive when you've got a large family... some of the extra I make is saving for that. The rest of it goes to the kids, and my eldest who left the ship last year to start his own adventure as a Smithies apprentice."

She sighed softly, and slowly extracted her long, slender legs from the tangled pile of blankets, managing to unwrap herself from the little lioness's warmth after a few moments. The coyote's own breasts were soft, but starting to sag slightly from the number of children who had nursed from them, but damn if she wasn't still able to catch the eyes of men from across the room. Damned if she wasn't able to catch Shadi's, and she'd never particularly had a thing for motherly females. Perhaps Larise had just grown on her.

"Besides, it's easier being like this being a pleasure girl. You don't have to explain yourself because nobody asks for your life story when you're fucking them in a collar..." She paused, and laughed, giving Shadi a soft kiss on the nose as she stood, her bushy tail wagging as she retrieved her clothes from the messy pile on the floor. Shadi just blushed, smiling embarrassedly.

"Well, except for you now, but... that one was on the house." She laughed, redressing herself and spending a few moments before the mirror to cleaning the matted fur around her muzzle of Shadi's arousal. When she was done, it was still a mess, but she wandered over to Shadi, and gave her a few wet, canine licks across the lioness's own muzzle to help her clean up just a little. Then she kissed her properly on the lips. Shadi's contented purr rumbled from her chest.

"Just think about it, sweetness. You can enjoy what you do and earn your freedom at the same time. He wasn't the one who put you in that collar, but he's offered you a way out of it. It's all a great big business though, and how he runs it is clever. This way, he keeps a workforce while he owns us, and gets skilled labour who have already proven they can do the jobs asked of them if we stay afterwards. He's created his own economy aboard the ship, and it does truly benefit everyone aboard."

She turned, and cracked the door a touch, before turning back to Shadi with a wink of her eye.

"Besides... at least he's not trying to breed you to extinction. If anything, from what you told me, he seems to enjoy his time with you for more than just the sex." She teased, blowing the stunned looking lioness a kiss as she cackled her way out of the door and down the hallway.

She blinked a few times, sitting upright.

The world wasn't as black and white as it had always been made out to be when she was a child. Hell, even as a slave, she had seen the canines as a whole as nothing but scum and villains...

But then she'd met Mack aboard here, and Larise, and suddenly the world was many more vivid shades of grey than she had ever been taught. The big picture had expanded into a panorama, and she was still coming to terms with just how narrow a view of things she'd had once. Like trying to describe colour to a blind person, the words to put a name to how she felt simply didn't exist in any language she knew. She still couldn't even put a description to how she felt towards Isiat, but... Larise was right in one thing at least.

Even if he owned slaves, he was trying. She had seen how happy Larise's children were aboard. All of the children aboard seemed like healthy, normal children. They weren't in collars, and they weren't being dragged away like the younglings at the castle had been, never to be seen by their families again.

She sighed, frustrated at the lack of progress it felt like she had made to resolving her feelings towards Isiat, and at herself for her inability to even come close to adequately describing them. Falling back on the pillows, she shut her eyes, listening to the reassuring, ordered blades of the propellers as the spun ever onwards, taking them towards whatever came next.

One two three four,

One two three four.

---

Isiat was sitting by the music box when Shadi knocked later in the afternoon, surprising him.

"Come in, the hatch is open." He called out, idly tapping his fingers to a soft tune that echoed from the speaker-horn. His tails swept across the seat as he stood up, helping Shadi climb the last step and quietly closing it behind her.

"Well, this is a surprise visit surely. To what do I owe the pleasure?" He tried to keep himself from smiling. Her mere presence lit the room wonderfully. She was wearing one of the silky green dresses he'd had sent to her just after she arrived. It hugged her curvaceous figure marvellously, accentuating her broad, motherly hips and the curve of her breasts. She looked healthier than ever, and that alone gladdened his spirits. Well, that and she was indeed, a very fine-looking young woman. Her golden collar sparkled in the reflected light of his quarters.

"I uhm..." she started, her eyes darting to the floor for just a moment, a cute, embarrassed blush tickling her nose pink.

Oh, of course, he'd paid Larise well to go and 'speak with her' and to plead his case. The words would have come much easier from her fellow slave rather than from her master who would just appear to be trying to upsell himself on his virtues. He wasn't a fool though. He would have never made it where he stood without carefully playing his cards as needed.

"I think I'm ready... I just needed some time to think about everything, and..." He spared her any further explanation with a wave of his paw.

"Say no more. You needn't explain it to me... I'm asking a lot of you, especially after what you went through. If you do want to back out though, I can find other work for you-" he tried to sound as reassuring as possible, his paws folded neatly in front of his waist.

"No, no! I can... Larise, she. No, I'm okay with it... but I have a condition." Shadi rallied her composure, straightening her back as her mismatched eyes met his. He just grinned in response. Bartering, finally, something he was good at!

"Name it, and it shall be so."

She nodded, seeming to hesitate just a moment before she spoke.

"Anyone I don't want to touch, and I mean anyone..."

"Shall not lay a paw on you, on pain of a short-route trip back to the surface." He nodded. That seemed to appease the little lioness, her overlong tail sweeping back and forth over the carpet. She nodded after a moment's thought, seeming content with that.

Now it was his turn to play. They were such different people, and yet, he felt oddly drawn to her, like the gravity that kept a planet orbiting its star. They were independent of each other, but he was drawn to her, more so than any other slave or woman he knew.

"Would it be too bold of me if I said I had sincerely missed your company?"

Shadi laughed, smiling, though there was still conflict in her eyes, he could tell it had lessened, like a receding tide.

"Is that your way of telling me you've missed me, or you've missed me dancing with you?" She raised an eyebrow at him catishly. Well, at least she could be playful about it!

"Both? I'm allowed to miss both, right?" He quipped with a wry grin, before he walked her over to one of the seats, sitting across from her. There was a decanter of brandy on the table between them, and he poured them both a small measure. She took her glass gratefully and downed it in a single gulp, the alcohol stinging it's way down her throat and making her wince. Isiat chuckled and took a more measured sip, enjoying it from his delicate glass.

"I admit, I'm relieved you've agreed... the trader's conference will be a busy time, and the kind of deals that take place here may make or break a trader's career. Fortunes worth each day, enough to buy a country, people, and an army to defend it change hands at these gatherings, and I... well, I need you for this." He confessed, smiling at her. She helped herself to another glass, trying to bite down her anxiety at the thought of it.

"I'm counting on you to be the irresistible treat that will make people sign away their lives for a piece of, or at the very least, irresistible enough to keep their eyes on you and off the fine details in whatever they're signing. Your dancing is perfect. They shouldn't and won't be able to keep their hands off of you."

"Unless I say so?" The barbed comment drew a slow nod from the many tailed Vulpine.

"Unless you say so, exactly. I will obviously arrange the clients. It's entirely up to you how or if you want to do anything with them. Obviously though, if I make a better deal, you make a larger cut, and get a step closer to getting your collar off that much sooner... And I promise none of them will hurt you." He made sure to reinforce that message for her with a firm, yet not unkind glance, holding her gaze until she nodded her understanding.

"Good... I've some ideas for the first trader I want you to perform for, assuming they are at the conference of course, but, I'd like to go over some details with you if that's alright?"

She nodded, and he scooted his chair closer, pouring them both another glass. This time, she made sure to drink it much slower.

They talked until after the sun had dipped below the horizon, casting the desert outside into a purplish hue, and surprisingly for her, he remained incredibly professional the entire time. He began by describing the conference itself, an almost month-long gathering of traders at what was considered essentially the edge of the civilised world, far enough from any province or kingdom that nobody else would be around to ask fees of them, and distant enough to make any sort of disruption by force on the conference woefully impractical.

Traditionally, there would be performances, auctions, dealmaking, games of chance, skill and strength, contests, and rivalry throughout. He tried to emphasize how vast a gathering it was to her, but the way he described it such, she could not even begin to imagine.

"Like the High fortune, but tenfold. Twentyfold even!" He insisted finally. If that was even near true, it would be larger than even the largest gatherings of the feline clans that she had once attended as a young girl. She large ears twitched at the very concept that such a thing could exist, but then again, before she had stepped foot on the High Fortune, there were many things she would have insisted could not be so. Cities that floated, and canines who were not evil, to name a few...

She found herself relaxing more as he continued to talk, often switching languages suddenly in the middle of a sentence and forcing her to follow along, just to keep her on her toes. When she stopped him and asked questions or for him to explain something in better detail in the same tongue he'd been speaking, his eyes positively lit up in delight, and animatedly, he would fill her in further, his tails wagging like a pup.

How could such an eccentric man be evil by any stretch of the imagination? She could not see it. He truly believed in what he was doing, and that it was the best way to improve upon the world as it was. He even spoke to her about picking up slaves while they were there. His charismatic nature, it seemed, had the same infectious traits that his smile did, and she listened closely to every word, even when it came to that uncomfortable topic.

"Were it that I could buy them all, I would. But at a convention this size, I imagine even one of the dragon clans would struggle to find the funds for that, letalone the space... I have people I rely on to find those who are promising, needing, or otherwise fated for worse... But it's not a process you will be involved in, nor one I can be seen to be involved in. When I began buying up slaves, I, unfortunately, earned a reputation as an easy sale that Scion has since worked hard to discredit. While I won't make the purchases personally, we're likely to add at least a hundred heads to the crew, if not more..."

While it seemed like a noble gesture, Shadi, for her part, couldn't help but think of how many thousands more would not be so fortunate. She tried to block the thought from her mind, but Isiat caught her troubled look before she could hide it.

"Now you understand my dilemma. Saving them all is impossible. But we can make some difference, and perhaps, in the long run, a more significant impact... there will be time to talk about it later though. Let's move on-"

"But what about me? You went out of your way to save me-" She interrupted, looking at the male with what might have been a contemplative gaze. He looked right back at her, tilting his head to the side.

"It's like I explained. You had more value and worth than any common slave Shadi, and it would have been a waste to leave you as a breeder for those dogs. Securing you was more than just a profit move, it was political as well. It's hard for them to hold you over your dear father's head when they don't have you after all, and that frees him up to wreck all sorts of chaos. Since news of your rescue reached him, he's been doing his best to drive a nail into the foot of the canine fronts. He's wrecking havoc, and forcing them to divert more and more resources to deal with his hit and run strikes... Chaos, as I said." He grinned.

"Business thrives in chaos. In times of calm, it is predictable, orderly. In chaos though, people are prone to panic buying, impulses, rash decisions when their very survival may be at stake. Supplies that weren't expected to be used must be replenished. Weapons must be delivered, armour forged, resources for all of these things sourced, armies must be fed..."

He explained, holding out his palm and running a claw down each of his fingers in turn before he clenched his fist closed.

"Traders are that middle ground between order and chaos. Why look at the dragon clans! Do you really think they got where they stand now, high and lofty above the continent and everyone on it by being passive players in the great game? They built order, and when the other species inevitably brought about chaos through their own attempts to get ahead of one another, they used that chaos until it was suitable for them to bring order again. There's a reason they haven't gotten involved in this war between cats and dogs. It's good business for them."

Shadi frowned, her tail giving a twitch as she considered what he said, before making her somewhat dry appraisal.

"You're not really doing a good job of selling yourself as a good person through all of this, you know?"

"I never said I was. The world isn't black and white. But I try to be more good than most, and less bad than the rest of my ilk." He gave her a half smile in return. The male was as eloquent and honest in his own summary as he was smooth talking.

"I am but a single man, with limited abilities, and limitless potential. Perhaps one day, someone else can take up the standard where I plan to leave it, and that is still leaps and bounds ahead of its starting point... I wish High Fortune to be an example of what can be achieved without needing to resort to our worst instincts, cheating, murder, and violence."

He certainly knew how to spin a tale, and Shadi couldn't help but be just a little caught in the vision. It sounded like he had simply described all of the heavens of all of the faiths at once... Perhaps 'better than it was' though, was easy to mistake for heaven when you had spent the last several years in the depths of a pit with a collar on your neck closer to hell. She checked herself, the weight of the gold bound around her throat grounding her against floating away and being swept off her feet by his fantasy.

"What about slavery?" Her firm stare bore him down, but he met it unflinchingly. After a moment, his expression softened, and a half-hearted smile crossed his lips.

"One day, perhaps. But not yet, sadly. As Scion mentioned, we tried it. It didn't work. One cannot hope to stop the world turning by pushing against it. I don't expect it will be ended in my lifetime or the next even. I'd be happy for the idea of what we would both like to see to be planted in our lifetimes for the next generation to nurture." He nodded, shifting in his seat before he stood and paced over to his desk, his tails ever flicking in the rhythms that Shadi now knew how to identify. She watched them like a hawk, her foot tapping against the floor quietly as she followed along with his tempo.

"After all this, are you sure you are still willing to dance? You seem hesitant..." He made the observation, pouring himself a glass of something dark and stronger than the brandy. Her sensitive nose twitched even from all the way across the room as she picked up on the aroma of very well fermented and fortified grapes. He slid into his chair, slouching back. Shadi saw her chance.

"I am just fine, thank you very much... I can do this. I want this thing off my neck..." She hissed, scratching at the fur beneath her collar.

"Well, make a fine enough show of yourself at this conference, you might be able to knock most of your debt out before too long at all. Maybe even before the next winter, depending on your.... Enthusiasm." There he was again, giving her the devil-may-care grin of his, as he raised the small goblet in his paw in a playful toast.

"Salut."

She stood, and snatched the glass from his extended paw, catching him by surprise as she downed the contents in a single shot. The liquor was much, much more potent than she had expected, and she fought to keep from gagging as it burned down her throat like a slow trickle of fire-oil.

Isiat watched her with a clearly amused grin, but said nothing, waiting for her patiently as she regained his composure.

"Well, you won't be charming a lot of males out of their coin if your first impression for them is choking on your drink..." His dark chuckle made her cheeks flush, her nose pinkening rapidly, but she was quick to recover her composure, her tail giving a single, decisive flick. She quietened him with a firm gaze that spoke volumes of her determination.

"I want the collar off. I don't want to be anyone's property. Even yours." She repeated to him, taking a step forward until she was standing directly before the seated male. He looked like he was enjoying her little temper far too much.

"Prove it then. You don't need to convince me with words. Show me."

She marched over to him and gripped his shoulders firmly in her paws. Her owner looked up at her with that far too cocky smirk of his. He wanted enthusiasm, did he?

She tossed one leg over his waist as she slid into his lap, her paws roaming across his chest. She leaned in and pushed her muzzle against his roughly, and the vulpine made no efforts at all to resist her. She took the lead, showing him just how much damned enthusiasm she could muster. Doing this to him was still leagues above what she had been subjected to. This was her choice now. Her enjoyment. Her pleasure she was getting from the rough wash of his paws as he fondled her through her clothing.

She peeled his own belt off, along with the rest of his coverings between sultry rolls of her hips as his lustful tongue lashings across her breasts that he had exposed to the air. Her sharp claws dug into the back of his head and guided the arrogant male's motions, ravishing her body as she danced in his lap, his hips gyrating to the tempo of his tails flickering.

One-two. One two three four five.

One-two. One two three four five.

She gasped as his fingers found her now bare sex, the little lioness letting out a trembling moan while his digits played her like an instrument, each little rub and stroke like a plucked chord of her nerves.

There were no words between them, only the sound of their heavy panting interspaced with feral moans and grunts. She let herself go, freeing the shackles from the Shadi she knew as a cowed and broken slave. She was an Amasii lioness, fierce and beautiful, passionate and strong. She was a chieftain's daughter of the plains, and any man would count himself lucky to have her.

He held her hips as she positioned herself above his rigid, dappled length before she lowered herself onto him. Her heated moan was lost into the vulpine's muzzle as his prick sank into her warm depths, her body stretching to accommodate her owner. She let her paws hold him against her, smothering the male's face between her breasts while she passionately rode him.

She gave him enthusiasm alright, moaning and crying out to the wood-panelled ceiling, playing her part as the good little actress. Of course, it was an easy act to play when the male himself knew how to properly handle a female's body, kissing and suckling and biting her at all the right times to make her squeeze both her eyes and her thighs tight, her inner muscles rippling and working Isiat eagerly.

Under such a woman, and such a determined assault of pleasure, the male had no way of holding himself back, nor any such intention. He pulled her down with a wet smack onto his knot at the same moment that she dropped her weight onto his lap.

He swore into her soft fur beneath her collar as he grunted and finished inside, Shadi calling out her own climax as the pressure she felt inside uncoiled like a tightly wound spring. The room took on the distinct aroma of sex, and good sex at that. She purred in her afterglow, feeling each warm throb as Isiat emptied himself into her very core, the male fleaing his teeth along the edge of her throat, just above the thick band of her golden collar.

"And that, little kitten, is how you will convince any male to buy or sell whatever the hell you tell them to." He let out a low, dark chuckle that rumbled like the deep-set vibrations from the massive generators at the very heart of the airship, the beating pulse that set the tempo of every other thing on the vessel.

"Even you?" She teased, tensing herself around him, a tight clench that earned an appreciative hiss of pleasure from the vulpine along with another hot streak of his seed to coat her cervix.

"I thought that would have been obvious when I paid for you." He sighed and slumped back in his chair, his tails flopping down like wet pasta. She rest herself against his chest quietly, giving his neck a delicate little lick with her tongue sweetly. It was a tender moment as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against his chest in their afterglow.

They spent the evening like that, curled up against each other, until her body was blissfully sore, any desire she had felt from the lingering twinge of the canine drug that had been forced on her long since well and truly sated.

---

She crept from Isiat's quarters in the wee hours of the morning, just past middle night if she was to guess. Even now, it was still pleasantly warm outside, and she toed her way across the top deck, watching as the moonlight shone down upon the dunes and their airship alike, casting shadows across the rolling hills of sand.

But then she spotted something curious that drew her to the edge of the railings, the slow gusts of air by the turning propellers nearby tossing her hair back.

There were figures on the top of one of the dunes, roughly arranged into a circle around a long obelisk of sandstone that jutted from hill like the point of a sundial, even now casting its moon shadow long over the rolling sands.

"They are Batha'armen. Devotees and cultists of a long-dead god of the people who once called this place home, before it was swallowed by the dry sea that it here now."

Scion's voice made her jump with a sudden, startled squeak, her paws wrapping protectively around herself and bundling the robe she had taken tighter. When she turned to scowl at the dragon, he simply dipped his head in apology.

"What are they doing out there? How did they even get out here? I don't see any horses or airships or... anything." She frowned, scanning the dunes for an obvious explanation, and finding none.

"Watch then." He offered cryptically and leaned against the railing beside her, his golden eyes glinting with mischief in the moonlight. She huffed, in no way at all satisfied by his answer, but turned anyway, propping her elbows on the smooth wooden railing, her chin in her paws. Her tail gave a single, irritable flick.

She could have been back in her quarters by now, resting comfortably in her bed, dreaming of places far from here and-

The sudden thunder rack startled her as much as the dragon's sudden appearance had, and once again, she gave an undignified, feline squeak of surprise and alarm.

At once, a fearsome sliver of teal lightning seemed to simply snap into existence, lighting the sands with a pure glow that stretched far further than should have been possible. The lighting shouldn't have been there. She knew that much to be true. It was something unnatural and frightening, and yet she stared in enraptured awe, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

It defied the very fundamentals of nature as she understood them. Lightning came and went faster than the beating of a frightened sparrow's heart. It did not curl around stone obelisks. It did not regard the shadows gathered around it with a sentient awareness, or address them with predatory hisses, like some sort of angry serpent.

Lightning most certainly did not commune with mortals but through the power of its strike, and yet, this blinding serpent of pure energy given form did. The unreality of it terrified her. Such a thing did not exist within the natural order of the world. It had no place. It was thrilling to behold, even as her mind reeled at how such a thing could be.

After a moment, it shot directly upwards, as if mocking the fashion in which true lighting behaved, exploding in a starburst among the heavens with a might peel of thunder that rattled the very bones of the ship as she gripped the railing, her knuckles turning white beneath her tan fur from the strength of her grip.

Clouds rolled into being at the point the spectacle had vanished, and quickly spread outwards, blocking the stars with their violent birth until they stretched across the sky entirely, from horizon to horizon, rolling with dark, heavy malice.

Then the heavens burst and rain began to pour. Fortunately for Shadi, Scion had moved across to her, and extended one of his leathery wings over her like a tarp. The rain poured down against the leathery membrane, like hundreds of fingers tapping against the skin of a drum.

"W-what was that?" She hesitated to ask, afraid of what the dragon's answer would be. Instead, Scion simply shrugged his mighty shoulders once.

"I cannot say for certain. There are mysteries in the world that even dragons, ancient and long-memoried as we are, do not know the answers to. Magic, most likely. Perhaps the visible will of their gods. Only they would know for sure. There are people who spend their whole lives trying to unravel their secrets, never to so much as see a glimpse of them. I have seen such things only on one other crossing. Consider yourself fortunate Shadi. Theirs is a dying culture, resigned to their fate. Soon, there will be none left at all. You are not likely to see such a display again in your lifetime. Come inside. You'll need to be rested for when we arrive."