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Halloween Story: Birth of a Captain

Part 1: Snow Moon (November)

Age Warning:

If there is a country out there where anyone under 18 would be allowed to read a story like this legally, and you unfortunately are both under 18 and live in such a country, please close the browser window and back away slowly, then go beg your family to move to a civilized country J

Seriously, if you are under 18 don't read. It is probably illegal for you to be doing so.

Trigger Warning!:

Non-con, forced sex, kidnapping, slavery, torture, vore, blood, cutting/self-harm... it's all in here along with even creepier things. Here thar be squickies!

Warning:

This is the origin story of my character/fursona Captain Xeno, and as he is a dark and conflicted being, it is a dark and nightmarish story. If you are the squickable sort, please just don't read it. Please understand that as a writer, what I would IMAGINE as the type of scenario that would create a Black Unicorn versus what I would ever actually DO or condone doing in real life are 100% different!

Disclaimer:

Reality is a place where other people have rights & feelings that are just as valid as your own. In reality, no matter what a person does, they never "deserve" to be hurt or controlled by others!

Fantasy is a place where characters who are not real people often act in ways that (hopefully) no real person ever would or should!

If you ever have a difference telling these two things apart (Hint: if you ever have caught yourself thinking things like "she deserved it" or "women have to say no, but secretly they mean yes.") then PLEASE close your browser window and go make an appointment with a therapist or counselor. This story is just not right for you.

I know that 99% of you already know all this and can handle a story like mature adults, but it needs to be said - and if you like the disclaimers, feel free to use them for your own stuff.

***

OK - if anyone is still with me after all that....

Sit down and listen well, everyfur, for I have a chilling All Hallows Night tale to tell ye....

***

1 - Snow Moon

Jada half-closed her eyes and enjoyed the pull of her lady's maid's strong hoofpaws as the older fur tugged and twined her long silvery mane into a complex braid. Once Jeanne finished and tucked the end of the braid into a neat knot, the shire girl parted Jada's mane on either side of her slim spiral horn, and brushed her forelock smoothly to hang on either side of her narrow jaw. The style was fetching, Jada saw as she held up her polished silver mirror. It made the most of her huge violet eyes and framed her long, slim muzzle.

Behind her, Jeanne's reflection over her shoulder in the mirror showed the contrast between unicorns and all the lesser equines. Even the Arabian and Friesian bloodlines barely approached the ethereal grace and delicacy of a unicorn's bone structure.

As a Shire furgirl, Jeanne looked like a big clumsy brute next to her mistress. Her black mane fell in a set of coarse bangs over the white blaze down her wide, flat forehead. Her ears were thickset and round-tipped, not like the curving, pointed ears that framed Jada's horn. The rest of Jeanne's shaggy mane was caught back in a loose ponytail bound with a brown ribbon.

Jada turned to face her maid, swinging her cloven hind hooves out of bed, tossing back the feather-stuffed satin duvet. "It's lovely, Jeanne." She said.

Jeanne nodded, a quick bob of her broad, strong muzzle 'Yes, Jada. Thank you."

As Jada looked up at the furgir who had served her these last five years, she couldn't help making comparisons between Jeanne's body and her own. Especially this last season, her fifteenth year, Jada's body had been changing and blossoming in ways that bothered her and pleased her in equal measure.

If Jeanne, now in her 18th season, had felt similarly three years ago when she'd begun growing the same way, she'd never showed it. Now she was a full-grown mare, already through her first heat and ready to begin a foal in her next heat.

Jeanne's black fur was coarse but shiny with health. Her simple green muslin dress, with a rust-red laced bodice over it, was last year's Yule gift from her mistress, and was a bit too small. Her large breasts were pushed up above the square neckline, threatening to spill overtop. And her hips had widened, her round, full haunches stretching the fabric across her rear underneath the slit tailored in the skirt for her tail. As a hardworking housefur, Jeanne had wrapped the length of her tail in a long band of rust red cloth matching the bodice so that it would not catch on things as she went about her duties, and so there was no cascade of hair to hide the swell of her rear, or the slight bulge of her sex tucked up under the root of her tail...

The heavy wooden door of Jada's camber creaked open, causing her to jump as the undermaid, a young haregirl named Sasha, came in, rushed to the closet, and immediately began laying out Jada's clothes for the day. "Sorry I'm late, ma'm!" She squeaked, her voice muffled by the pile of cloth bundles into her arms.

The warm rush of blood stung her cheeks as Jada blushed, embarrassed to be caught staring at her maid this way. That dress was simply indecent. She made a mental note to have a new housedress ordered.

Jeanne simply smiled knowingly, showing even square white teeth, and pulled Jada's nightdress up over her head. The slender unicorn shivered as the crisp November air hit her naked fur, her violet nipples hardening. She clamped the extravagant white plume her of tail close to her body for warmth, but also to hide the sheen of moisture there, slicking the plumply swollen lips. She'd had one of *those* dreams again. Jeanne's velvety black nostrils flared as she caught the scent.

"'Bout to have your first heat soon, I think." She mentioned casually as her big paws seized Jada's tail. She began brushing in long even stroked that tugged firmly at the base of the plume, each tug brushing the fine underhairs against the younger fur's sex in a teasing tickle that aroused but did nothing to satisfy.

Blushing even harder, Jada stamped and scraped a hoof as she ducked her head in sheer embarrassment. "Am I? Oh, yes I suppose it is getting about that time, isn't it." She managed to stammer. The older mare's casual attitude towards such private things shocked her even as Jada tried to emulate her worldliness.

The hare finished laying out today's finery, a long lavender gown with fluffy crinoline underskirts and a blue-white corset bodice, and the ribbons, mane ornaments, horn cap, and other jewelry that went with it. Then she turned to pull the heavy copper kettle off the fire that crackled cheerfully in the brown brick fireplace, and poured it into the large ceramic bath basin that sat on a thick lambskin rug in front of the hearth. "Bath's ready, ma'm" she said quietly, and immediately began filling the kettle with more water from the pump.

Jeanne's experienced hoofpaws quickly finished the tail braid, each twist and tug of the hairs rubbing the base of Jada's own tail against her dark lavender folds and eliciting a faint whisper of humiliating pleasure. A few beads of wetness sparkled on the deep purple edges of her sex's lips by the time Jeanne was finished with her. Too soon and not soon enough, the shire girl tucked in the last end of the final strand, and looped her tail up into a long, loose twist secured with a ribbon to keep it dry as Jada bathed.

With a faint splish, Jada stepped into the shallow steaming water of the bath basin and sat down, hissing as the cold porcelain chilled her back even as the heat of the water stung at her swollen sex and scorched her inner thighs. The fire seemed to run straight up through her belly and into her small, high breasts where it made her pale nipples darken and lift into little hard pointy knots. She was hoping Jeanne wouldn't notice her unusually sensitive reaction but no such luck.

"Ah, miss it does take you like that. It's sponge baths for me on my heat days, or I'd never get a blessed thing done, would I?" She laughed. Jada wondered what on earth Jeanne meant by that. She heard Sasha trying to hide a giggle behind her paws, so it seemed that even the silly little hare got the joke.

As was usual, to keep her dress from getting soaked, Jeanne, yanked her bodice laces open with a quick tug of one hoofpaw, then tugged the drawstring of her blouse loose as well so she could slide both layers down off her shoulders. Her massive breasts swung loose as she bent over to pull her arms from her sleeves, then rolled her blouse and bodice together in a bundle around her wide hips. Her leathery black nipples, as wide as Jada's palms, tightened into thick black nubs in the chill.

Without comment, she picked up the sea sponge, dipped it into the bowl of soap, then into the hot water, and began scrubbing at Jada's left shoulder, her tits swinging and bouncing with the motion of her arm.

"H... how long do you think?" Jada asked her.

Jeanne pricked her ears forward "Eh? Oh, your first can take a few extra days to come on. P'raps three days til you start proper heat. Mebbe four." She said absently. "D'ye want me to tell your Lord Father, or would you rather...?"

Jada gasped, her breasts rising with the sudden motion of her chest, and the rose flush under her fur spread across the pale tops of her breasts and surged up her throat to turn her cheeks, muzzle, and ear tips a dark red as she thought of the very idea of telling her distant, noble unicorn stallion father about the shameful changes happening beneath the veiling curtain of her tail.

The shire whinnied a laugh, and scrubbed the soapy sponge across her chest hard, jokingly. "Hey, Jada you got something red on your boobs!" she teased, and pretended to try to scrub the blush away from her skin. For a minute it was like they were girls again, without the distance of rank between them.

Jada laughed a more delicate, bell-like whinny than her maid, and splashed a frothy wave of soapy water over her friend's face and bouncing breasts. Then she laughed even harder, much less ladylike, as she saw how funny Jeanne looked with suds dripping down her muzzle like a goat's shaggy beard.

"Y..you little PEST!" Jeanne laughed, almost a bray, and grabbed Jada, forcing her back into the bathwater and scrubbing hard at everything she could reach with her sponge. The soft-rough sponge dragged across the erect nipple of one of Jada's breasts and she squealed like a colt in a kicking fight. The sensitive nub sent a jolt of pleasure zapping down to her loins that felt like she'd been kicked in the gut. Jada doubled over, gasping, holding up one hoofpaw to get Jeanne to stop.

The larger mare did stop, and then cocked her head to look at Jada, her ears pricked all the way forward, her nostrils flared wide. "Eh, you're further along than I thought!"

Experimentally, she slid the soapy sponge across Jana's breasts again, circling from nipple to nipple, and Jana gasped and arched her back involuntarily, unable to stop another nickering squeal from escaping. She felt something like a butterfly flutter twitching under her tail, and glanced down in startlement. Jeanne followed her glance, and both furgirls watched as it happened again, the swelled purple lips of Jada's sex winking briefly open wide to show her maiden passage nestled in her wet lavender folds, the hard-swelled pearl of her clit standing out of it's hood and shiny with her own wetness.

Jeanne grinned her horsey smile again, and before Jada could react, she plunged her other paw, the one not holding the sponge, into the water between Jana's hind legs. "Let's see how far along you are, luv." She said. Jada had no idea what she meant, and froze in horrified shock as she felt the thick hooflike tips of Jeanne's work-roughened paw plunge between her sex lips and pry them open. She gasped and put her paws over her eyes in absolute shame as one wide finger probed into her, carefully pushing aside the thin barrier of her maidenhood, making her flinch with a slight pinchy stretchy feeling, to explore the wet swollen velvet of her virgin passage.

Jada was about to shove her maid away and deliver a blistering scolding, but at that moment Jeanne dropped the sponge and took hold of her horn - her * horn*! Nobody but her mate must touch that most private and sacred of parts! But *oh!* Jada gasped and writhed under the slippery touch of her soap-slick hoofpaw. Her horn was always a little sensitive, especially when she pushed her magic into it to heal or to charm a wild beast. But sensitive like a touch on a sunburn, not like now.

It was as if she'd suddenly grown another clit! White hot shivers of pleasure exploded in sparks behind her closed eyes as it felt as if her mouth was full of feathery butterflies, kissing and tingling at her lips. And the feeling stabbed down from her forehead straight down between her legs, causing her to spread her thighs wantonly wide, lashing her now-soaked tail which was coming loose from the careful braid.

Jeanne rubbed her velvety black muzzle against the fluffy fur of Jada's soft white cheek. "Better get this bit nice and clean, or all the stallions will be scenting you and starting fights at the dance tonight..." she whispered, the tickle of her fur teasing and arousing.

Her pussy winked and clenched, winked and clenched, around the invading finger, and she felt her hips begin a slow, circular back and forth motion as her body begged for more, deeper, now.

The stretchy, pinchy feeling got worse even as the pleasure increased, though. She rolled her hips forward, popping the first knuckle of Jeanne's finger inside her stretched opening. The warning sting made her wince. It felt like she was about to... almost... *tear* something between her legs. But like a loose tooth can feel both painful and good to wiggle, Jada somehow wanted more of the pain as much as she wanted more of the pleasure.

"Now, m'lady." Jeanne warned, her hot whuffing breath tickling the fur inside Jada's ears. "Got to...save that... for your husband...." Jada could smell Jeanne's sex now, a heavy stable musk much darker than her own jasmine and rosewood scented fluids. She shocked herself by wondering what it would feel like to slip her own slender hoofpaw fingers up under the thin skirt, push them between the leathery gray-black fat lips of Jeanne's pussy and explore deeper there...

She knew that Jeanne was no virgin, she'd overheard her whispering with the other maids. Once she'd gotten well out of her heat, she'd let males mount her. Not even equines - no, to ensure no chance of getting with foal, she'd let other species of fur have her - wolves of the kings guard eager to try the fabled randy paces of a draft mare. Ugh. Jada shivered at the idea, although she knew that males had a part that was supposed to match her own female parts, she'd never seen one and the idea of letting a male do *that* to her, letting him put a part of his body all the way into her body, was frightening.

But this, this thing that Jeanne was doing, thumb rubbing across her clit in rhythm with the winking convulsions of her pussy, plump horse lips brushing across her muzzle in hot, breathy kisses like the soft flick of a tail, her free paw sliding up and down Jada's horn in a slow motion, sending pulses of wet hot fire down her spine. She felt other paws, small hard paws with claws, trace over her nipples, pinching, twisting, pulling, and she realized that Sasha had joined them in the tub, but she didn't care. As her hips flexed upwards without her conscious intention she felt like a Pegasus, leaping into the air with pummeling beats of strong wings, reaching, reaching, striving upward for...something. Jada felt flat buck teeth scrape gently across her left nipple, then a small hot tongue flicked out and sucked her teat into the suckling, demanding cavern of Sasha's mouth.

"Ohhhhhh!" Jada squealed and felt a throbbing, clenching pulse begin at her clit, a white-hot beat as if she had a heart made of fire down there pumping pleasure instead of blood through her shaking limbs. It was almost, almost the thing she'd been reaching for. She needed... something... needed bigger, harder, deeper, *more* between her splayed and shaking thighs. Jada snorted and bucked, shoving her hips forward HARD, forcing Jeanne's finger, almost as thick as her own delicate wrist, all the way into her throbbing sex.

"Ow, oh ouch!" she screamed, as that pinchy feeling of stretching turned instantly into a stinging *rip* that felt as if Jeanne had stabbed her with a red-hot sewing needle just beneath her clit. Her violet eyes sprang open and welled with tears at the sudden unexpected pain. She clamped her soaking wet tail down hard underneath her. Yet her disobedient pussy kept pulsing and throbbing and demanding she hunch her hips harder and harder onto Jeanne's invading finger. There was something deep all the way inside her that was starving for touch in the same way her clit and horn had hungered, and Jeanne's digit was not long enough to reach it.

And now, oh no, nooooooo. Jeanne stopped kissing her, pulled her finger out with a wet popping noise, leaving Jada's empty hollow sex to grasp and wink lewdly, begging to be filled. She looked down to see the tiniest curl of crimson ribbon into the cooling sudsy water between her spread legs. Sasha and Jeanne gave each other a guilty look.

Jada clamped her hoofpaws down over her sore and achy sex "What did you DO?! What did you do to me?!" she whispered.

Sasha put a reassuring paw on her shoulder "No, no. It'll be fine. It's natural. You just tore your maidenhood a bit is all. Why, I lost my own at five seasons, playing "mates" with me own brothers."

"Let's see the damage, though." Jeanne said, some of her brusque, blunt nature coming back into her voice. She hooked her paws under Jada's knees and unceremoniously dumped her on her back in the water, hooves in the air, legs falling open against the side of the tub.

There was no pleasure for Jada this time as the shire girl's heavy hooves took hold of her nether lips like the pages of a book and spread her open, exposed to the horsegirl's piercing gaze as she bent close, her breath hot and humiliating on Jada's naked folds. Jada kicked and bucked weakly in shock but the much larger draft mare simply used her weight to push down on her hips and spread her even wider. She thumbed Jada's folds open and prodded at the achy, stinging spot right at the opening of Jada's passage.

Again, Jada whinnied "Ouch! Stop!" but she felt herself prodded again once more before the shire nodded and let her go.

"Ah, yer awright ye big baby. It's the tiniest of little tears. Whatever stallion yer Lord Father marries ye off too will still have the pleasure of popping that pussy open around his tool." Jeanne patted her reassuringly. "But we better stop now. No more fun and pawing til that heals up."

Jada began crying in earnest now, one hoofpaw clutched across her sore and swollen nipples, the other paw jammed between her thighs holding her bleeding sex as she knelt sobbing and shaking in the bath. It wasn't so much the pain as just... everything. She'd been feeling so shocked, then so good, then so awful all of a sudden. And then on top of it, she'd not quite caught... whatever... she'd been reaching for and her clit and nipples and horn still sang and pulsed with that awful *wanting* hunger. After all that, for Jeanne to talk so coarsely of her sex being somehow hurt and torn even WORSE than she felt now - and by some strange stallion she'd never even met... it was too much to bear.

She stumbled up to her hooves and swung from the shoulder in a backhanded slap, as the weaponsmaster had taught her. The wet *crack* of her hoofpaw across Jeanne's jaw echoed in the room like something precious breaking beyond repair.

Jada hit hard enough, using all the deceptive wiry strength of the unicorn, that Jeanne stumbled back, stepped on her own dragging tail, and sat down hard. Her skirt flew up, showing that her own sex was swollen and glistening like wet black leather between her chunky, muscled thighs.

"Y...You BITCH!" Jada hissed "I am unicorn. Too good to be pawed at by your dirty horse hooves. Of course your fat ugly fingers don't work" Her voice was shaking as she spoke "You could have damaged me or... or something. Made it so I can't foal. My father would have you harnessed up as a cart-horse if I even said one word!"

Sasha squeaked in fear and fled into the dressing room as Jada whirled and stalked past her, to fling herself, soaking wet and naked onto the satin covers of her bed and sob out her confusion and hurt. As she cried, she heard Jeanne and Sasha cleaning up the room, mopping spilled bathwater, putting things away. They talked in low quiet tones too soft for even Jada's sharp ears to hear what they were saying.

She'd thought Jeanne was her friend! They'd always been together. Yes, a distance had grown between them in recent years, as was only proper between a lady and her maid, but they had grown up in the House Einhorn together as close as sisters. And now it was all over. Their friendship was ruined. And Jada was about to be in heat, and that meant only a few short months later she'd reach her second heat and be of breedable age, and her Lord Father would choose one of his allies to give her to in marriage. She'd leave House Einhorn where she'd grown up, where all her friends and memories were, and go be the mated mare of a unicorn stallion she barely knew, and never see Jeanne again...

Jada flinched as she felt someone sit heavily on the bed. She looked up through tear-wet silver lashed to see Jeanne holding a cool wet cloth to the swelling bruise at the side of her face. She'd put her blouse and bodice back on, tidied her mane, and dried her wet fur.

"Now then, why the tears?" the shire girl asked.

Jada sat up and pulled the top blanket around her nude body. "I just... going into heat, and then what we were doing was fun but then it hurt... I just..." She flung herself bawling into Jeanne's strong arms, breathing in the sweet hay and fur musk of horsegirl "I don't WANT to marry some old stallion! What if he's old or ugly or mean?"

The shire mare held and rocked her for a minute, and then asked "But, canna ye do the magic? Like ye did for Sasha to scry her beau and tell her who her first mate would be?"

Jada pawed the tears from her eyes "Well of course. For normal furs I can do that, it's a simple spell. But it doesn't work if you try to scry the future for a magic animal, you silly mare! I just get blackness in the crystal... and then it gives me *those* dreams."

Jeanne nodded, knowing which dreams Jada meant; the unicorn girl had had occasional nightmares where she writhed and moaned and cried out for years now, but she could never remember them afterwards. The shire had seen her in the throes of one, and thought she looked more as if she were being mounted and used good and hard than like a furgirl in the grip of a fearful dream. But then, Jeanne mused to herself, a good fuck might BE a nightmare to such a snobby little prude as Jada had turned into in these last few years. Hmmm. That gave her a lovely idea.

"I thought it might be something like that." She said carefully, patting Jada's shoulder over and over comfortingly. "Ye know there is a way - a thing the local girls do - that ye could find out who your husband will be. Would that bring ye ease?"

Jada sat up and nodded, trying to tuck the loose strands of mane back into her braids. Her horn felt raw and itchy as if she had been rubbing it on sandstone; she didn't think she could bear to do magic right now.

"It would, Jeanne. Even if he were someone I didn't want to marry, at least I could... prepare myself for my fate, I guess. Or be ready with good arguments to tell my Lord Father why I should marry another. If only it could work. But for magical animals, no spell will show me my future husband's face..."

Rudely, the shire mare raised a hoofpaw and cut her off. "Naw, naw. It's not a spell. It's... more a charm belike."

The hare looked up, shocked, from where she was drying the wet flagstones with a bath towel "You don't mean...?" Sasha asked.

"Well, it always works, doesn't it?" Jeanne said, standing up and putting her hoofpaws on the ample curve of her hips.

Jada tugged her elbow, angry that her maids were forgetting their place "WHAT works? Tell me at once." She ordered.

"Aye, well." Jeanne began "D'ye know the Wolfrun Wood? Take the track that leads downwards to the meadow at the heart of it, and there is a pool there, a wide pond with a little island in it..."

Sasha interrupted, stumbling excitedly over her words in her excitement "Yes, and on the island there's a dead tree - and beneath the tree there's an old stone altar, and..."

Jeanne nodded "Yes, that's the one. The old ferals used to do their fertility rituals there, breeding the hunt king with the harvest queen to ensure a rich harvest in the fall."

Jada leaned forward, head up and violet eyes wide, enthralled with curiosity. Jeanne continued "They do say that if ye go there on a full moon, bathe nude in the pool and sleep in only your fur on the altar that you will have a clear and true dream of who your first mate will be."

Sasha put her paws over her pink nose, wriggled her long ears, and giggled "I've done it, but - well let's just say that it's not my first mate's *face* I was dreaming of!"

"And did it work?" Jada was almost pawing the bed in frustrated curiosity.

Sasha looked down, seeming embarrassed, and didn't speak. Instead Jeanne answered "Er... yes. It does. At least... it tells ye who yer first *mate* will be. You know, the first time yer bred. Not just playin' like we did t'day, but really truly bred."

"oh" Jada said in a small voice, trying hard not to blush again.

"Soooooo." Jeanne continued "I dreamed about, well I'm sure ye heard the rumors 'bout me n' those wolfboys from the guard." The shire mare looked away and almost seemed shy for a moment, laying her ears back against her head

"Well, I didn't love them or marry any o'them, did I? I only loved one *part* of them ye might say." She shook her head and laughed wryly "But for YOU, though, whose first mate is also gonna be her bridegroom... d'ye see what I'm getting' at?"

Sasha chimed in again "And, since it be only a dream, ma'm, it can't spoil anything you need to keep for your wedding night." The hare collapsed in giggles again, laughing at her own naughty joke.

Jada looked from one to the other, trying to decide if she was being led into a prank. Both Jeanne and Sasha seemed sincere, though. And it was true that there were old Feral places of power that hummed with wild magic still loose in the world. It would be a harmless adventure, and one last bit of freedom wrung from her girlhood before her body forced her into a grown mare's place & responsibilities.

"I'll... think about it, then." Jada said. She looked up at her shire mare maid, realizing how badly the bruise on her cheek was swelling. She concentrated, pushing her life force from her core into her horn, even though the magic set the spiral curl of bone to throbbing and tingling again, waking another round of hot pulses in her loins. A sliverblue glow sprung faintly into being around Jada's horn, and she stroked the length of it softly along the mare-fur's jaw. The light seemed to sink into her flesh like water soaking into dry earth, smoothing down the swollen imprint of Jada's hoofpaw.

"All better? Can we forgive each other please?" She asked.

Jeanne's ears flicked back for just a second, Jada assumed with surprise "Nuthin' to forgive." She muttered gruffly, seeming not to want to even speak of the morning's events.

Jada flicked her tangled tail uncertainly "Yes, yes of course." Feeling that she must retain her place above the lesser fur species, she continued "Mind you, there's to be no taking liberties like that ever again. Understood?"

The mare snorted and looked away in seeming submission, and nodded once. "Yes'm" she muttered. Sasha bobbed a quick curtsey and echoed her "Yes ma'm."

"That's all right then." Jada assured her. "Now, go tell the Housekeeper that I'm not feeling well at the moment, and I'll have a nap now and be down this afternoon when I feel better. And please, don't disturb me for a few hours."

Jeanne also bobbed a clumsy curtsey, something she almost never did since her heavy draft mare frame made the feminine gesture seem like a parody, and left quickly along with Sasha. She turned her head over her shoulder once more as she shut the door behind her and gave Jada a strange, calculating look. Jada felt that Jeanne must be surprised how easily she'd been forgiven, and dismissed it from her mind. She lay back down, shivering as she pulled the cool satin coverlet over her naked damp fur. She curled up in a warm little ball under the blanket, pressed her legs together to try to quiet the hungry ache in her sex, and drifted slowly off to sleep.

***

In the hall outside the room, Sasha stood on tiptoe to grab Jeanne's elbow and pull her into an alcove off the main sleeping quarters' hallway. "Here, now why'd you go and tell her about the dreaming tree?"

Jeanne nickered a quiet horselaugh "Well, she's so on edge with her first heat, n' so keyed up wantin' to know who her husband'll be, thought I'd do 'er a favor."

Sasha fixed her with an ironic look, running her paws over her long ears and wrinkling her nose in doubt "Yeah...y'know there's a good reason for the other name for that place."

Jeanne flicked Sasha playfully with her tail "Nightmare Tree ye mean? Pfff it ain't as bad as all that. I mean, yeh I dreamed of getting it good and hard from the Guard wolfpack when I went and did the charm, but us mares are made to take it rough." She shrugged "T'weren't that bad. Kinda hot actually."

"Jeanne..." Sasha sighed. "My gran said, the more innocent you are about, you know, breeding and such, the rougher the dream is. You played around a bunch with girls before your first heat, n'... well, I'm a hare and our littermates all have our paws stuffed up each others' burrows as soon as the diapers come off. But Jada's a lady, she's been raised gentle-like."

The mare stomped a heavy white-feathered hoof, her horseshoe ringing off the stone floor of the hall "It's just a prank, Shasha. Sheesh, don't take it so hard, ye'd think I tied your gran to the breeding stand and peddled her tail for a copper a jump!."

Sasha shook her head quickly, long ears flopping. "No, no. It's a prank, y're right. Her snootiness might have a bad dream but... eh what harm can a dream do after all? Anyway it might take 'er down a notch or two. That was a beaut shiner she laid on you earlier, reckon you owe her for that."

The maids grinned at each other, and padded off down the hallway to find the Housekeeper.

***

Read what happens when Jada goes to perform the folk magic charm at the Dreaming Tree in Chapter 2: Oak Moon (December)

Let me know if you like it or have critiques. Constructive criticism to make the story better is always welcome.

SPOILER: Yes, Jada will end up being Xeno's birth mother.