FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1

Brothels have everything, for a price.

Sex.

Drugs.

Indigestion.

Ed wanted a warm bed.

Okay, he wanted those other things too, but a warm bed topped the list. He was creative. He could manage fucking, eating, and drinking himself silly while fast asleep.

Current events, upending his stomach twice, and a hasty nighttime trek through the jungle while goons chased them left him as energized as a wrung sweat rag. Meanwhile, Masamune was somewhere burying his face in yet another piece of ass. Ed might've marveled at his and the old man's reversed vitalities if he hadn't endured this roller coaster ride of depravity for over a decade. Being raised by Masamune would've put newborns in another kind of nursing home.

Ed swayed with each laborious step, knocking into everything in Nemissa's lacking the wherewithal to avoid the walking steamroller. No one cursed him out for bumping into them. They'd have to break their necks to look him in the eyes, or not've gotten trampled in the first place. Ed was too tired to even give back any bullshit anyway. His world was a parting crowd of anonymous blobs, the clamorous party din muffled by his thick gauze of drowsiness.

“Hello there, Sir!" a chipper voice somewhere down south shouted at him. “Don't get too many adventurer's this far out. You must be pretty strong to've survived th'journey! What can I get you?"

“Bed…" Ed groaned, his eyes struggling to stay half open.

“You got it! Come along."

Small hands grabbed Ed's, who allowed himself to be led away. After a minute of sluggish plodding, he was greeted with the rousing shock of a cold seat instead of a pillow. He'd been pushed onto a barstool shouldered by other animals, drinking or cackling to spite his eardrums. A muscular dingo in a loincloth stood behind the counter, the shelves behind him sagging under the weight of various gourdes, coconuts, fruits, and tankards.

“What'll ya have?" the dingo asked in Canine, mixing a drink smelling like a cup of ashes and peppers.

“A sedative," Ed said, in his sleepy approximation of the language.

“Fuck me, your accent's ass," the bartender replied in Common. “What'd ya want again? I dunno what that word means."

“Somethin' ta help me sleep."

“Ha! Wrong place, wrong night for sleep, mate. T'nite's th'full moon party!" He slid the spiced concoction he'd mixed in front of Ed in a wooden cup, who stared at it with a wagon load of bags weighing his eyes.

“I…really shouldn't. I just wanna sleep."

“Y'won't after a sip of this, trust me. On th'house."

Those magic words spoken, Ed grabbed the cup and shrugged.

“Well, maybe one won't hurt."

2

"YOWWWWWWWWW!" Ed, red faced, sweating, shrieked after slamming his dozenth emptied cup down. The men seated on either side of him, the ones who'd started this little drinking contest, were doing their best to nurse their eight and ninth cups respectively without upending their stomachs in the process. The dingo poured Ed's thirteenth drink, which he chugged before he'd even finished topping him off. The crowd behind them cheered with raucous approval.

The drink tasted like sweet, molten vinegar, like someone thought a fruit salad might ferment well in a forge. It turned his sinuses into steampipes, lava-flowing tears streamed down his face, but he wanted more. This was the fabled “good shit" which, up until now, he thought was a productive squat over a deep hole.

The badger to his right, fell back with a catastrophic belch.

The reptile to his left finished his cup, was refilled, then introduced his forehead to the counter with a hard-headed thump.

“Hot shit, y'won!" the dingo said, riding a violent saddle of excitement and alarm. He'd seen people drink thirteen Hot Zingers straight before, just never outside of a bodybag. “But, uh, I think you've had enough, mate."

Ed slammed his empty cup down. “Again," he demanded. His breath could've singed eyebrows.

“I really don't think—"

“Fill me up or get ready t'collect tabs in Hell!"

The dingo filled his fourteenth cup.

Ed swallowed it. An icy chill shook him from his ears to his toes. A harsh burning scorched his esophagus all the way down to the nuclear cauldron that'd become his belly. This hot-cold tingle wrapped itself around his spine in a tight double helix of intoxication.

Animals backed away as Ed swayed. Instead of shaking Nemissa's by finally going down, he shook the counter by slamming his cup on it.

“Again!"

He drained the fifteenth cup before the horrified bartender finished topping it off.

“Again!"

3

Another night, another hangover.

Ed woke in an unfamiliar place with hundreds of gremlins using his skull for a roller derby rink. Someone'd stripped him naked and threw him in a grassy corner inside a smelly tent. Masamune and twin tabby cats half his age were asleep beside him. The male sprawled atop the old man's snowy abs, snoring with his lips wrapped around his erect penis. His spread legs were draped over Masamune's shoulders. The cat's erection pressed against Masamune's cheek, almost in his mouth if it weren't already snoring in the female's creampied pussy. Cum, sweat, cigar ashes, and spilled beer lathered them in a vulgar, raunchy lotion.

Ed rolled over, eyes shut, lips pursed. The unseemly trio continued snoring. Sawing logs was too modest an idiom. Their combined snores was like throwing an entire cabin village into a massive wood chipper.

Ed counted sheep. This quickly became counting piercings when he realized how hungry he was. Her piercings. She only had a few, but he never minded an excuse to look her body up and down.

He imagined her soft lips kissing him. Her tongue and strawberry balm filled his mouth as they heatedly snogged. Running his fingers through her silky, gold hair, he gasped her name in her mouth.

"Trixie..."

His penis, a rigid volcano desperate to erupt on the valley of her loins, entered her. His thrusts weren't the ruthless, careless onslaught he made lesser whores endure. This was Trixie. He lo—He rolled gently into her.

Her wet body undulated beneath him, her warm breasts compressed beneath the chiseled wall of his chest. She moaned his name between their mouths. Their steady rhythm escalated with their tempestuous heartbeats as sweat rained from their clapping, coiled bodies. Her pussy's fervid grip squeezed oozing pleasure from his penis, and his eyes rolled back.

"T-trixie..."

This was the moment, while their lips and tongues and limbs and loins were locked together in a hug of pure bliss. Do it now! Tell her!

"Trixie...I..."

"Aye, Trixie what?"

Ed shot awake with a firing squad's finality.

Masamune'd put the twins behind him to lean on his side. One arm supported his head, which itself supported a sneer so heavy with crude interest that his neck might've snapped otherwise. Ed realized a half second too late that he was erect when he rolled to face him. The eruption'd happened. Cum rolled down his spire with the generosity of a splurged nest egg.

Masamune whistled.

"You fancy Trixie, 'ey?"

"I dunno what you're talkin' about," Ed said in as level a voice he could manage while praying for death and failing to cover his leaky boner with both hands.

"Y'sounded pretty happy t'see her in your dreams," Masamune said, scruffy grin broadening.

"She's a good piece of ass."

"Just a piece of ass?"

"Well..."

"You can do worse for a woman. If y'ever wanted to settle down, I mean."

Ed's anxiety was monetarily shadowed by the incredulity born from listening to the old man say one of the dumbest things he'd ever heard.

"Th'fuck you mean, 'settle down'?"

"You're a hot-blooded, sensitive, strong-bodied young man—"

"Creepin' me out. Get to th'point."

"—'n she's a hot-bodied, fertile, experienced," Masamune waggled his eyebrows, “young woman who's as in love with you as you are with her. How long are th'two of ya gonna be too coy t'hold hands after you've already fucked each other's brains out? Y'never thought about what it'd be like t'make a home with her instead of bummin' it out with a walkin' corpse like me?"

"No," he lied. "She's a whore, I'm her regular. She sure wasn't sayin' how much she loved me while ridin' your dick."

"Can't blame a young woman for keepin' a professional attitude at work when a hard task is set before her." Masamune said companionably. Ed might've throttled him if his hands weren't occupied.

"I approve," Masamune said, leaning forward.

"What?"

"You've got my blessin' to make Trixie your wife. Now all you're missin' are th'balls."

"I thought you weren't her father?"

"Might as well be at this point, between all them rumors Lila spread 'n raisin' the little cunt all these years!"

Ed put his hands behind his head after his cock finally went limp. "It warms my heart knowin' you'll allow me t'marry th'daughter you don't even think you have."

Masamune waved a hand. "Oh, I've got plenty of daughters. Law of averages says my fatherless bastards can't all be sons."

"Trixie's just a friend."

"I thought she was a piece of ass."

"She's a piece of ass...and a friend."

"A friendly piece of ass, that you fuck."

"Bingo."

"For free, most of th'time."

"Some of th'time."

"Whose name you moan in your sleep."

"You're drunk. You were hearin' shit."

"Nah, I heard it too," the guy cat said, leaning over Masamune's shoulder with an impish sneer.

"Me three," the girl said, leaning over her brother's shoulder, also smirking.

Masamune kissed them both on the mouth and, while he was kissing the sister, the brother happily swallowed his dick to the scruffy root in one consummate gulp. The old man rolled onto his back, serving his miscellany of muscles and orifices to the lustful siblings, who crawled atop him to resume their respective sucking.

Ed turned away and shut his eyes. The moans and squeals and slaps prevented him from dreaming about Trixie again.

4

An hour passed since Lain'd last seen anyone.

He couldn't sense Thunderkiss.

Masamure and the bear reeked like butcher's scraps but he couldn't find them either, not that anyone could track such a, comparatively, delicate scent among this cavalcade of bareback raunchiness.

Stowhart, despite sticking out among these naked mongrels, apparently made good on his promise to find a discreet location to set up camp.

This was so stupid!

They weren't particularly close. Hell, he'd almost had two of them killed, but they'd made up for it, right? Wasn't this early in the adventure to "Break the Fellowship?" He'd read about that on TeleTropes once. Analogous to the "Second Act Breakup" or the "Third Act Misunderstanding", where contrite situations split the protagonists only for them to reunite in the end, their bond stronger than ever.

What a load of bullshit.

There hadn't been any misunderstandings.

Masamure and the bear didn't leave on bad terms, they left to get wasted.

T.K. and Stowhart were the ones throwing a fit, for whatever reason.

So stupid.

Lain's search led him around Nemissa's, away from tents, partygoers, and suspicious puddles. He leaned against a wall that didn't feel moist to the touch to reassess the situation, arms folded, jaw set.

He was alone.

Emil would've been twenty-five soon.

Would he've taken after Mother or Father? Would he've passed for a purebred Labrador? Would anyone've teased him for being a wolf mutt? No. He'd never allow that. No one would get in the way of his happiness, of his life. Not some hypothetical bully, and not Masamura Kage.

Lain's gloved hands squeezed his arms. His snout wrinkled with an unconscious snarl. Masamura Kage would pay…He'd—

"What are you doing back here, all by yourself?"

Music and crickets and distant moaning rushed into focus as Lain glanced toward the approaching animal, a male fox adorned in a loose fitting silk robe. The sash wasn't tied properly, exposing his toned chest and midriff like a gift half opened. Moonlight and torches made his pelt glow with a fiery sheen as he sauntered toward him. His smile was a playful crescent promising mutual satisfaction.

"None of your business," Lain said, remembering to breathe.

"Not yet it's not," the fox said, caressing Lain's arm with one hand, flipping his golden ponytail with the other. He smelled like a cornfield, like a bouquet of sunflowers, like fresh honey on warm bread. Lain shuddered.

"You're an adventurer," the fox said, running his finger smoothly up and down Lain's bicep.

Thunderkiss still wouldn't answer him. Lain looked away.

"Is it obvious?"

The fox's fingers trickled up his arm before slipping behind his robe, groping his abs. "Plainly. And from far away too. You're definitely not from Shanty Town, at least."

That soft hand dipped lower as they stared one another in the eyes. Clawtips grazed Lain's and he gasped, clenching his teeth as each finger hiked down the successive hill of each ab. His briefs stirred behind his loincloth. Lain tore from their gaze.

"Are you a virgin?" the fox asked.

"No! I mean, no. This is...sudden. This has never happened to me before—"

The fox's fingers, those lovely fingers, closed Lain's mouth shut. He wanted to snarl, to tell this cheeky bumpkin to get fucked in a ditch, to leave him the Hell alone! Lain sputtered into his fingertips instead, shuddering, hating the buttery ease with which he was made to do it. Then the fox's smile broadened. No one smiled at him like that.

"You've only been with a handful of people then. No, just one. They've satisfied your every need, so your eyes have never wandered...until now."

The other hand dipped behind Lain's loincloth. Another stifled gasp slipped past his trembling lips a second later.

"A playmate? No. You wouldn't demean yourself by having your one sexual partner be a casual fling." The fox's grip tightened with decadent, pointed firmness.

"I...I wouldn't? Right...no, I wouldn't."

"He's your lover."

Lain nodded shakily, obediently.

"Where is he now?"

Who cared? That bastard wanted to have fun tonight? Let him! He'd do the same.

"Forget about him," Lain mumbled. "Is there...um...anyplace we can go? For…privacy."

The fox giggled and Lain swam deeper down his pool of his icy-hot bliss. "I like shy men."

His hand slipped into Lain's briefs, squeezing his rigid cock like a lever, no, like a leash. He walked away. Lain, like a trained puppy, followed.

5

"Why's it all glowy and stuff?"

"Who gives a shit? Just suck it."

"I'm not a whore, asshole."

"I sure as shit ain't payin' ya t'chat. Get to work, slut!"

The naked beaver shrugged while jerking Thunderkiss off. He never wore underwear, or anything beneath his cloak for that matter. Undergarments might've counteracted the “flasher-mummified-in-yellow-Chirstmas-lights" effect whenever he opened his cloak. Only his erect cock was exposed now. It looked like the beaver was misusing a traffic wand.

The beaver swallowed him.

"OW!"

"What's th'matter now?"

"Your pubes shocked my lips! Wait, you don't have fur. You don't even have hair. Are you some kinda lizard?"

"Sure."

"Take off your hat."

"No. It's my kink."

"Wearin' nothin' but a hat, cloak, and some grubby boots is your kink?"

"Yeah, just like bein' a daft, blue ballin', stupid ass cunt is yours."

"I'm a guy!"

"Explains everythin'. It's so small I couldn't tell."

If anyone heard the slap from the bushes, the following electrocution noises ensured they forgot in a hurry. Thunderkiss stepped into the open a moment later, steaming.

Third one, Thunderkiss groaned inwardly. How hard is it to get your dick sucked around here? Lain had it easy. He'd sooner have one of his dumb anime heroes jump outta the screen to cock slap him before T.K.'d let him go a single night without getting his pompous dick sucked on demand. Wasn't THAT loyalty? Didn't that mean anything to him?

"I'm your 'Master'," he mimed nasally, swaying his head. "Almost twenty years soulbound! Ask me who's the 'Master' in bed, huh? All I do for him, all th'ways I lower and demean and prostrate myself for him and he talks ta ME like that? That's crazy! He's crazy. Right? RIGHT!?"

The animals around the bonfire, who definitely hadn't heard the slap, definitely didn't hear the electrocution afterward, and definitely not the jittery screams it hadn't quite drowned out, found various interesting things to look at instead of the crazy wizard stomping around.

Thunderkiss made eye contact with one of them.

"I said that's crazy, right?"

"Y-yeah, it's crazy, man," he said.

The fried corpse in the bushes that no one smelled became very aromatic now.

"He should be throwin' himself at my feet, pleasin' me, right?"

"Sure."

"WHAT?"

"Yes! Of course! Absolutely! Totally!"

"Damn right," T.K. huffed with satisfaction. "I'mma go tell him that!"

"Go get 'em, tiger."

"Th'fuck you call me?"

"Nothin'! I'm sorry! Don't cook me, man!"

“He's got a wife and kids!" the woman beside him, who'd sucked his dick before the commotion, said.

Thunderkiss stomped away. He ignored Lain to unwind and now, feeling as unwound as a snapping cable, he went looking for him.

"Yeah, I'll tell 'em. And I'll tell 'em he's an ass too. An arrogant, stuck-up, beautiful, determined, fun, amazin' ass."

T.K.'s gait slowed. His shoulders sagged.

"My favorite ass, siblin' complex 'n all. Th'best ass I've ever known. Not cuz I can't get better ass, mind you. Nobody thinks that. I just like him enough not to go lookin'. It don't matter that he's th'one fuckin' me most of th'time. Well, all th'time...His ass is mine in spirit. That's what counts."

T.K. stopped. He rubbed his chin.

"He's an ass, but I like his ass not t'go lookin' for another ass. He's an ass whose ass I like?"

His confused grimace brightened.

"I'll call him a dick instead!"

This settled, Thunderkiss resumed his search. He sensed Lain nearby.

6

Flesh on flesh, fur on fur. Lain swam along the sensual waves of their mixed sweat as their grinding bodies undulated together. He tingled with something other than an errant zap from his partner, and craved more.

The fox's tent became a sauna ever since their lips touched, their tongues wrestling to explore their joined mouths. Their cocks drooled greedily, Lain's on top, squeezed tight between the lewd vice of their naked embrace.

Exhilarating!

This word thrummed in Lain's mind to his heart's drumbeat. What would Father think? Seeing him bedding a mongrel, a savage, a wild animal! What would he say? Had he even noticed his sons were missing? It'd been two years. He probably wasn't back from that hunting trip yet, ha! Thoughts of his father, rather than kill his libido, fed it indecorously. He pretended the old wolf was in the simmering tent with them, watching, gaping, clutching his chest like pearls.

Lain's tail wagged vigorously, his moans rumbling in their mouths.

Their sweaty frisking amplified the fox's scent into a heady, floral aroma intensified further by their musky dicks. Lubricated by the other's precum, their cocks slid between their pressed bodies to make obscene, wet noises that competed with their slurping kiss.

Lain's eyes rolled back. Their mouths split with a juicy smack as he threw his head back, unleashing something like a whimpering squeak crossed with a rueful howl. He trembled, then he fell limp atop his partner.

"Huff...huff...Oh my...Did you...?"

Warm cream flowed through Lain's piping bag. Generous frosting lathered the fox's cake. A hitherto frozen treat melted down its rigid stick. Innuendo aside, Lain nutted. His orgasm smeared itself between their stomachs in blissful, heavy squirts.

"I...I'm sorry," Lain said despite his broad, wobbling grin.

"You were quite pent up," the fox noted.

"Yes."

The fox turned, flipping the larger wolf on his back with the ease of a rolling tide. Lain stared up at him. He'd never seen this animal in his life. He'd probably never see him again after tonight. They shared intimacy with no regard for what society taught him it should entail…

Exhilarating!

He should've done this sooner. Indulge, like Thunderkiss always told him to.

Thunderkiss…

"You awake, big guy? Don't tell me you're done already?"

Lain resurfaced with his hands groping the fox's thighs. A vulpine erection clenched and unclenched like a writhing beast atop his belly. Beneath it, Lain's lupine noodle lay atop the bed of its cum-stained crotch.

"I'm sorry," Lain repeated. His ears pulled back this time.

"You're thinking of him," the fox said.

"Your dreadful allure is rivaled only by your irritating ability to read my mind."

The fox leaned closer.

"Lucky for you," he said, "I know what to do when people find me irritating."

"And what might that be? Oh. Ooooh...O-oh...Gods..."

Kisses trailed down Lain's chest, over his abs, and ended with a resounding smooch on his, now eagerly standing, erection. Firelight glowed through the tent's fabric, glinting off the fox's lascivious, green eyes as he swallowed Lain's cock in one, noiseless gulp.

Fresh coats of saliva reinvigorated Lain's musk, a hot fermentation of hours of hiking and fighting and running out of his favorite soap on the airship. Lain's nose, smelling himself, wrinkled with disbelief.

So dirty.

So raw…comparatively speaking. A pampered wolf like him likened light perspiration to a kinky, noxious haze. Nevertheless, his smell awoke a dormant fetish like bacon over a sleeping hound's nose. He'd never shower before sex with a flesh and blood partner again.

Then the fox's tongue slithered into his foreskin, swabbing his crown.

Lain watched a bulge orbit inside his hood with toe-curled enthusiasm. His tender head spat thick globs onto the taste buds scrubbing it down. It fired precum into the fox's gaped maw like a wizard firing spells at a roaring abomination, and was swallowed whole again. Soft lips resumed slurping his cock from top to bottom, burying itself nose-deep into the untamed jungle of Lain's crotch fuzz. Lain's moans, lacking another pair of lips muffling his, resonated shamelessly.

The fox giggled around his penis before slipping off with another wet kiss to his head.

"How irritating am I now?" he asked, licking his lips.

"Very," Lain cooed. "No one told you to stop."

"We're gonna do something even more fun."

The fox straddled him and grasped their dicks together. Twin lava flows as clear as honey spilled thickly as he jerked them both off. The spillage scaled each finger like road bumps, lathering his hands in the process.

Lain growled, dizzy with pleasure, focused with anticipation.

The fox squatted over him, his warm anus kissing his drooling tip. No hesitation. No fanfare. He sat like a dropped anchor, impaling himself down to Lain's clenching balls. He didn't gasp. His eyes didn't even twitch. He stared into Lain's shaky gaze with the same libidinous composure, like his dry asshole was made to be a twelve-inch cock sleeve.

The possessive sphincter squeezed him like a vice. Lain seized up. His muscles flexed, limbs stretched, his ears went flat against his head and his fingers and toes curled and unclenched spasmodically. It hadn't been a smooth descent. The fox used his ass like a hammer, Lain's gleeful dick like an upturned nail, slamming repeatedly until his golden cheeks finally pressed down on his nuts.

"D-d-didn't that...hurt?" Lain asked, dumbfounded.

"Not at all," the fox said, smiling. That smile melted him. He wasn't a wolf. His dick wasn't in his ass. He had no power. He was putty in the fox's hands, putty kneaded by the rise and fall of shapely hips. Up, down, up, down. The fox didn't moan. Lain, moaning, grunting, panting, and squealing along the reverse bull ride, didn't notice.

Lain grabbed him, clutching his chest and hips, and thrusted against his bouncing ass. He was desperate for some control, any control. The fox still didn't moan.

"Do it," he demanded as a chilly haze shrouded Lain's mind. Lain thrusted obediently, harder, faster, jostling the vulpine God on his lap. A tingling sensation grew in his loins, firing sparks from his sweaty balls to the back of his skull like electric arrows.

"Do it!"

Lain threw his head back and howled. His body became an arch, its apex his thrusting pelvis, balanced atop his heels and shoulders.

He came.

Everything curled. Everything funneled out of his penis as his orgasm kept going, and going, and going. Everything rapidly swirled down this bottomless bath drain and, like someone who'd pulled the stopper too early, it was too late for him to stop it.

The world blurred. Senses flickered on and off between bliss and nothingness with light switch abruptness.

Then everything snapped off.

…

Dim music grew louder, along with muffled laughter and distant moans.

Smells returned next: sweat, charcoal, tarnished cologne.

Lain groaned, his mouth tasting like he'd sucked cough drops all day.

Feeling threw open the doors of awareness to find something like a flaming spear shoved up his ass, and Lain screamed. He couldn't get himself off of it. Large, black, clawed hands held him in place.

Sight barged in last to see what all the commotion was, and the doors slammed shut before it could escape.

Lain stared at familiar, pristine fangs, bared with sinister triumph. Green eyes like scorched emeralds glared at him. His eyes. His sneering face.

"W-what?" Lain sputtered in the fox's haggard, trembling voice. He looked at his hands, the fox's hands, gasping with the fox's mouth, bulging his eyes.

"Did you like it?" The wolf's voice rumbled in subterranean depths Lain never knew he could achieve. Dark like chocolate, soothing like a knife to the back. The wolf sat up, his dick still brutalizing Lain's snapping rubber band of an asshole. Lain readied another scream and the wolf grabbed his throat with the tenderness of a gorilla snapping chopsticks. Their noses touched and Lain wished he hadn't skipped brushing that morning. Did they really kiss, snog, with his breath smelling like that?

"Allow me to properly introduce myself," the sneering wolf said. "My friends call me Horei. My enemies call me 'Horei of the Six Demonic Petals of the Twin Lotus'."

7

Aura is an animal's wellspring of energy. Anyone can learn to harness their aura and manipulate the physical plane—these are your typical wizards, sorcerers, dark lords, and gangly nerds playing cultish games in their mothers' basements. Some animals don't have to learn. They don't gather components or learn magic words. They don't take short, half, or long rests to recharge because they don't need to. Animals born able to harness their aura know one spell from the womb, and can use it at will. It's the only spell they can ever know. They're like apprentice wizards after a long night of boozing in that regard, unable to read or cast any other spells, only mental reconstitution after casting a hangover remedy never comes.

Horei of the Six Demonic Petals of the Twin Lotus didn't know any of what he once lovingly called "mystical witch doctor bullshit", shortly before dodging Cortessa's fireball. He'd always had his powers, and they were fun to use.

Animals supposedly had five senses.

Horei had two.

He never understood why steak was Father's favorite food.

He never understood what reaction he was supposed to have when touching fire, other than grotesque fascination at his hands turning black.

He begrudgingly took lots of baths to “smell good", whatever that meant.

But that was alright. Missing senses as alien to him as crop circles would've been like missing life in five dimensions.

He saw terror in Lain Granfyre's eyes, and heard his rasping struggle to breathe.

Yes, the world was joyfully vibrant with his mere two.

Lain's terror flipped into a ferocious snarl as his hands made various signs, weaving a spell.

Nothing happened.

Horei laughed. "Was this what you meant to do?"

He mirrored Lain's signs with one hand, and a fist-sized stone flung into the tent. Horei managed to shake Lain awake sometime afterward. It'd been a bigger rock than he intended to chuck.

"You've quite the arcane repertoire in this head of yours. I can see why Cortessa wanted you to herself. Perhaps I'll indulge her desire for an elemancer duel sometime, I can see myself getting used to this body."

"H-how...how did you do this?" Lain groveled. "I've never heard—"

"Of a spell that switches bodies without a ritual? Without saying 'the magic words'?" Horei said with a grin big bad wolves across the multiverse aspired to. "That's because mine is the only one. I call it Murder on the Dance Floor. It lets me trade bodies with anyone I sleep with. Handy, eh?"

"Why?" Lain coughed, clawing Horei's—his hand ineffectually.

"Why you? Masamune Kage or the bear would've been easier to seduce, I suppose. But you, Lain Granfyre," Horei sighed, his loving gaze wandering around his new body, his free hand twirling Lain's blonde hair, "I can wipe them all out in an instant with your body. Plus, well, I've had a bit of a crush on you since we first met. You didn't know it was me serving your tea in Lord Kage's manor, of course. It's too bad. I think we could've made it work with kisses and blowjobs."

"No," Lain said, "I meant why did you name your spell something ridiculous like Murder on the Dance Floor?"

Horei wove another spell. This summoned a lasso of flames from the campfire, which lashed into the tent and Lain's opened mouth with a serpentine hiss. Lain realized too late that was the sound of his tongue sizzling, cauterizing. Horei waited for the screams, sobs, and renewed clawing at his forearm to stop, then punched Lain in the face when none did. Lain's face became a bleeding crater of hot agony. He whimpered quietly despite his steaming mouth feeling like someone took a match to his nerve endings. The pain couldn't possibly get any worse.

Then Horei ripped his massive dick out of his firmly corked asshole. Horei's hovering fist stopped another outburst.

"F-fu…" Lain whimpered.

“What was that? Speak up."

"F-fu-fump yob..."

Horei laughed. “Been there, done that."

He stroked bangs away from Lain's tear-streaked, reddened glare, staring into it longingly.

“This dour little fox would've never looked at me the way you are now. Your eyes are so magnificently fierce."

Horei's claw-tipped fingers loomed toward Lain's left eye. He jerked away. Horei held him steady.

"Relax," he said. "It only hurts for a second, I'm told."

"Laaaaaaain! You doin' some kinky shit in here or what? What's all that screamin'?"

Horei spun around as Masamune Kage barged into the tent, a cat half his age in either arm. They were all naked, giggling, and red-faced, and each held two bottles whose contents spilled everywhere as they swayed drunkenly.

"Me-yooow," the male cat purred, "that ain't kinky. Looks t'me like he's killin' th'poor fag."

"Wouldn't put it past 'em," Masamune said between mouthfuls of booze.

"You're th'biggest faggot I know, Bro," the sister said, draped over Masamune's left side like a damp towel. "You're so...so...so th'biggest one. You suck cocks when we're outta milk. You call a four-man gang bang takin' it slow."

"You're a bigger faggot than me by f-f-far, Sis," the brother said. "You're a pussy that eats pussy! Haha! Take that!"

"Women can't be fags, idiot."

The brother's eyes squinted into paper thin slits of confusion, then widened at Lain and Horei again. "Wow!" he cried. "He's killin' that fag! Kinky."

"How did you find me?" Horei asked, truncating Lain's struggles with another air-depriving clench of his throat.

"Followed your scent," Ed said from outside, groaning like he needed a whole pharmacy instead of an aspirin. "Ain't hard to track your rosy cologne when everybody else smells like musk 'n shit."

"My scent? Ah. Yes. Of course."

"Plus," Masamune added, "a nice little froggy told us he saw ya comin' this way."

Horei's gaze sharpened. "Blue skin? Dark cloak? Wearing a stupid hat?"

"How'd you know?"

“We're acquainted."

Masamune grinned at one of the Lain's in his vision, the one occupying the space above Horei's left ear.

"Never thought you had it in ya. Not th'stick up your ass, I knew you had that. I meant, uh, what was I sayin'?"

"You were sayin' you never knew that Lain could let out his inner party animal," Ed said.

"Holy shit! Y'read my fuckin' mind."

"Woooow!" The cats mewed in unison.

"Mentally stimulating as this conversation is," Horei said, smoothly donning Lain's perpetual abhorrence like a Sunday jacket, "this whore is a spy for Masamura Kage! He made an attempt on my life before you found me."

Lain thrashed in Horei's grip until he elbowed him in the head, knocking him out.

"He still fights, even when bested. He's too dangerous to be left alive."

"No," Masamune said, instantly sobered. "We've got precious little info on Masamura 'n his fruity little hit squad. I'll interrogate him."

Horei, who believed the Six Demonic Petals of the Twin Lotus garnered respect and trepidation, looked taken aback. No one'd ever called him fruity to his face before.

"Sounds fun, Daddy!" the sister cooed while attempting to draw circles on Masamune's white chest hair with her finger, managing a kind of sloppy triangle.

"Can we help?" the brother chimed, twirling Masamune's damp crotch fuzz.

"Sure! You can show me that trick ya'll did with your legs again, but with his legs," Masamune said, his inebriated sneer returning with a vengeance.

"That's what we do with our legs."

"We can't do it with somebody else's legs."

"Not with that attitude, you can't."

The siblings accepted this new truth with devilish glee.

Ed ripped the tent off its posts and flung it aside. Cold night air swallowed up the murky heat-haze that'd accumulated within it. Everyone inside but Horei shivered.

"Find Stowhart. He could be in danger too," Ed said.

Horei dumped Lain's unconscious body and stood. "Good idea. You may have trouble getting information out of him. I burned his tongue off."

"I was wonderin' where th'barbecue was," the sister said.

"Smelled tasty," the brother said.

"Yes," Horei agreed. "It smelled very, very tasty."