FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The wind whipped up a chill that nipped through Neft's thick feathers. He flapped his wings to steady himself as a sudden gust threatened to knock him tumbling through the air like a branch broken from a tree. If Neft didn't stay in complete control, he would strike the ground and snap just like that branch.

However, the pidgeotto had lifelong practice holding himself afloat. He knew when the tingling in his retrices, the flight feathers of his tail, meant that a powerful blast of wind and hail would throw him reeling through the air, flapping desperately to regain his balance. He knew how to carefully tilt and flap his wings to allow the gust to simply veer him off course. It was still dangerous and hard to maintain with the strong winds, but it kept him in control.

Practice didn't just tell Neft how to brave a storm. It told him when not to try. This was one of those times. The last gust was the most powerful and sent him tumbling dangerously close to a tree that could have snapped his wing like a beetle in his beak. He couldn't land just yet, though. Despite the danger of the winds, his height -- just above the tree-line where the winds weren't as strong and he could avoid dodging through dangerous tree trunks -- let him scan for somewhere to land. On the ground, he would have frozen in the snow. Either hypothermia would have taken him, one talon at a time, or he'd have been sniffed out by a hunting ursurang.

There were cliffs up ahead with a waterfall, a never-ending stampede of force hurtling towards the lower river. Terrifying, despite the beautiful, shining icicles that hung across the slick rocks around it like jewelry.

The crashing white thinned just enough that Neft's sharp, avian eyes could make out a gap in the rock behind it. The water changed hue ever so slightly as it fell. A cave. This was his only chance. He couldn't afford to wait any longer with the storm growing at its current rate. Neft tilted his wings to catch the gust at the correct angle, flared his maroon and yellow tail-feathers, and dove.

Thundering towards the waterfall like an arrow whistling through the sky, he lined himself up and closed his eyes. There was only a soft prayer to his patron Articuno before he struck the water.

But he didn't worry.

---

Most bird pokemon hated the water. Neft's nestmates, Chyree and Tyraatca, couldn't stand it. It stuck in your feathers and ruined them for flying for hours on end. They were pokemon of the air. They respected the wind and, in return, it held them aloft like a gentle guiding hand.

They prayed to Zapdos for speed or to Moltres for strength of feather as they whipped hearty strikes of their wings. Gales whose forces would smash Neft like a berry in the maw of an aipom were springboards for Chyree and Tyraatca's theatrics.

While his siblings claimed their heritage of the sky, Neft waded in the shallow waters of gently flowing rivers and pretended he was a vaporeon. The rivers were so colorful. He loved the murky browns that hid underneath the rich green algae and the darting carvanha chasing brightly colored finneon in the never-ending dance of predator and prey.

He wanted to join the carvanha, bashing the predating fish out of the way like he'd seen a real vaporeon do once, to grab the finneon triumphantly in his jaws before swimming a congratulatory loop, graceful -- not beholden to the fickle currents of the air, but instead to the embrace of soothing water all around him.

The vaporeon had turned to stare at him, curious and unmoving. Neft matched its eyes as long as he could stand to hold his beak tightly shut underwater, until the pressure of screaming lungs did him in and he whipped his head out of the water, gasping.

"Wait," he started as the vaporeon climbed the opposite shore, mud clinging around the fur of its soft blue pawpads. It looked at him again, web-like collar flexing, but then turned away and disappeared into the dark of the forest.

---

The waterfall slammed into Neft's back like a thousand shards of hail striking all at once, borne by a force greater than the strongest wind the pidgeotto had ever braved. He shut his eyes and forced his wings in another circular flap, squawking to dredge up every ounce of strength he had. His feathers were heavy with the weight of the water that smashed into them. His body hurled downward at a far steeper slope than he'd anticipated. Would Articuno hear his pleas?

He was only under the fury of the crashing water for a split second. During that brief moment, every ounce of practiced control he had was yanked away from him. Wings flapping but failing to catch air, he plummeted straight through to the other side of the waterfall towards the churning waters below.

It was warmer than he expected.

His eyes opened, but there was only white -- roiling, deadly white. He flipped and spun and didn't know which way was up, but he kept flapping his wings, wishing his feathers were like the webs of a vaporeon's paw.

Like the webs of the paw that grabbed him around his midsection and yanked. The water tumulting everywhere halted, and then rushed in a certain direction. Fur brushed against his back feathers.

His head popped out of the water and he coughed a heaving, hacking cough full of liquid from his lungs.

"You okay there?" someone said. "I got you. Tumble don't go this far out."

Neft hacked another cough, trying to catch his breath. "It's so heavy!" he gasped. "Why's it so heavy?"

The paw squeezed around Neft's midsection, and he shifted uncomfortably. "Falls like a hundred fuckin' tail-lengths, birdbrain. Ain't gonna be a cute little shower." She was female. What was her species? With his ears clearing, he could hear the soft tune to her voice. It was high pitched and slightly squeaky, but not annoyingly so. He liked it; it sounded almost like the squawking of his family.

He blinked twice to clear the droplets from his eyelids, and then glanced down. The paw holding him tight to his rescuer was covered in thick fur, bright orange with a crescent web of blue extending from the elbow.

"Buizel?" he asked.

"Bingo! Ten points for the one with feathers stuck in his ears! Congrats on seeing orange, guess your eyes ain't quite fucked yet!" She snickered.

Heat flushed underneath Neft's cheek feathers. He didn't quite know what to say to that, so after a moment of silence he followed up with, "What's your name?"

"Kaya," she said.

"I'm Neft."

"Like Nest?"

"I," he paused, "I mean -- It's not funny!"

"Sorry. Sure you hear that all the time." She still snickered, though.

She darted forward with him, dragging him across the surface. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of the cave as she towed him along, and he saw where they were going. The water pooled deeper within the cave where a cavern had formed with floors of actual dry stone. At the far side of the pool, water cascaded down from a ledge much higher up, although with much less ruckus than the crushing tempest outside.

"It's warmer in here," he said, swishing his wing along in the water. "Or am I --" A shiver ran down through his spine. His mother made sure to warn him as a chick that a strange, unnatural warmth could be a sign that his limbs were dying to the cold. Frostbite. He needed to get somewhere warmer and dry. "Kaya! I think my wings might be --"

She cut him off. "It's a hot spring. That waterfall in here comes from a spring deep underground, makes this whole place warmer. Not quite as warm with the river outside mixing in, but good enough."

"Oh."

She nipped at the plume of orange feathers on Neft's head, causing him to shift uncomfortably. "Don't worry. Water's warm in here, and you ain't acting like you got broken bones. I think you'll be ok, if not for some nasty as fuck bruises after that beating you took under the waterfall."

Kaya let him go. His waist and back felt cold where there had been soft buizel fur pressed up against him, but he didn't linger on that thought. All he needed right then was to get out of the water, onto the rocks, and collapse to rest his exhausted wings.

Neft dragged himself up slowly. Kaya offered a paw, but he refused. She'd helped enough already. He didn't want to inconvenience her more. After climbing out of the water, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the roof of the cavern, where light shone through an inset ledge to the side.

"Come on!" Kaya said. She leaned over him, and he got his first look at the buizel. Her snout was blunt, with tan fur under her nose and around her cheeks that contrasted with the orange everywhere else.

Buizel weren't an uncommon species, but Neft never had the chance to see one up close. He couldn't help but admire the thick, buoyant fur and the cute yellow flotation ring around her neck. If only he'd had those, he'd be swimming through rivers like this all day long without a care in the world. That roiling mass of whitewater at the base of the waterfall would have been nothing. A thrash of the tail and a swipe of webbed paws would have launched him right out of it.

He tried to remember what it was like just five minutes ago as the buizel jetted the two of them free from the tumble. Water had rushed through his feathers, breaking around his beak like the wind in his face when he was flying, but so much more intense. Despite all the fear and exhaustion he'd felt, he wanted to go back.

"Yoo-hoo! Pidgeotto! Neft! You still with me?" She was leaning closer. He could feel her hot breath on his beak. It smelled like fish, and he liked that. His eyes focused on her again, and he nodded. Concern had her muzzle curled back into an almost-frown.

"Sorry, I was just thinking is all."

A bright orange paw batted his beak. "Well maybe you should think a lot less, I dunno, dead-like? Whatever. C'mon. I'll get a fire going for us; warm you right up."

She plodded away without pause, wandering deeper into the cavern, where the light that seeped in from the cave high above better illuminated her. Neft, hesitating, delicately picked himself up to his feet and followed her over.

"Hell of a snowstorm out, isn't it?" she asked.

Neft nodded. "I really shouldn't have gone out today, and I'm not the best in the air. My brother and sister could fly this kind of storm. Guess I wasn't being too smart with that."

"Yeah," she agreed, "kinda fucking dumb. Flying into a waterfall like that? Amazed you didn't crack those hollow bird bones."

"Hey! It wasn't stupid. I didn't have a choice."

Kaya rolled her eyes. "Stupid was your word, not mine. The hell do I know, though? I live here. Not like you coulda landed and called for help or some shit. Naaah, gotta throw yourself head-first into a billion tail-lengths- high waterfall that's coming down like a million trillion blasts of water from water types. Yeah, super smart." Neft caught her smirk as she gathered sticks from a bundle along the cave wall, stashed with all sorts of other necessities. But he also caught worry for a moment as she studied his face. Then, she stuck out her tongue at him.

"It's not like I had a choice. The storm was getting worse, and the hail was coming down harder. I had to take a risk."

She pulled two pieces of metal from a small pouch and, focusing, struck them together right down next the sticks she'd piled. Sparks clattered out, and Neft jerked back.

As soon as Kaya noticed his shock, she struck the metal again, unleashing an even larger cloud of sparks, this time not even close to the timber. Neft started again, and the buizel nearly fell over laughing.

"It's just flint and steel," she said. "Never talked to a fucking rock type before? They all act like they invented the shit! Like it's their personal achievement that they gotta evangelize to all us poor pokemon who don't live in caves." She grinned, then glanced around herself. "Okay, bad choice of words -- I get it. You know what I mean though. Rock types, right?"

"I've never met a rock type before," Neft said, rubbing his wing behind his neck. Why was he suddenly so itchy?

Kaya snickered and leaned back down to the tinder. She ruffled through another of her pouches and set what appeared to be dried grasses at the base of the sticks. She struck the flint and steel again. This time the sparks caught on the grasses, smoldering them in little black and white spots that quivered on the dry material. Their edges shone with thin crescents of glowing red. She leaned over and blew on the grasses. The rapidly dimming red flared bright, but then dulled again.

"Bird. Get over here. Don't want to waste away my lungs when I got a perfectly good wing to stoke this shit for me." She blew at the grasses again anyway, the red growing slightly brighter but still not producing flame.

Tentatively, after picking himself up and then hurrying over when the buizel threw him a glare, he angled his wing and flapped gentle but steady. Sure enough, the ember flared again and again as the wind did its work, and soon it burst into a tiny flame.

He stopped to admire it, but Kaya snapped at him again, so he continued to fan the flame until it grew to encompass the first stick. Only then did she dismissively wave her paw for him to stop. He stared into the flickering light of the fire.

"That's incredible. How'd you learn how to do this?"

"I said before, rock-types. You got wax in your ears?" She gently shoved him, smiling, showing that she was only teasing.

Neft grinned back at her. He couldn't show his emotion through his stiff beak, but his eyes had plenty enough expressiveness to make up for that. "And since when do rock types cook their food?" He paused, lost in a sudden thought. "You know," he continued, "I've never actually seen a rock type eat before. Do they? I mean, they're like big hunks of stone that can think, right?"

"Says the squawking sack of feathers," Kaya said with a wink. "I dunno! They're the ones who taught me, but they just sort of hung out around the fire and didn't eat any of the fish I offered them! Who turns down fish?"

"Not a buizel!"

"Sure a pidgeotto wouldn't mind either," she said, sticking an elbow playfully in his gut.

"Ow! I've still got bruises from that waterfall!"

"Oh, shut up. It's not that bad. Anyway, fish --"

"Said the buizel," Neft interrupted with his humor shining across his face.

Kaya laughed too. "Shut up! Fish. Yeah, I got some fish I pulled up before the storm hit. Betting you're hungry after that whole diving act you pulled back there. Looked tiring."

Before Neft even had the chance to nod, the buizel scurried over to her supplies in the corner to grab a cloth bundle. She brought it over, then returned for a long, thin rock slab. After setting the rock over top of the fire, she began to lay fish on top, one by one, out from the bundle.

"Why don't they smell bad?"

"Just caught'm and salted'm this afternoon," she said. She peeked back into the bag, wrapped it shut again, and stuck it back against the cavern wall. "Besides, I wash this thing all the time. Never gets the chance to smell before I eat and wash it out again."

Neft nodded. His nest had been nothing like this. They'd lived on strands of straw and hay for bedding, eating whatever small bugs and fish they could come by. Sure, his mother had kept several cloth sacks for grains to eat when they'd fallen into rough times, but nothing like the extensive setup that this lone buizel had.

"Where'd you learn to do all this?" he asked, peering over the stone. The fish sizzled as water and the oils of their scales dripped onto the rocks. A pleasant smell wafted up to the bird's nose. "I -- other than the rock types, I mean."

"Well," Kaya said, swatting Neft's beak away from the meal, and then lounging back onto a rock clump, "some of it's from my parents. They were real good about passing along what they knew. Some of it's just from the other pokemon you come to meet when you're wandering around." She paused. "Did you know there's actually little worms and shit that can live in fish? You eat'm, then they live in your belly and eat what you eat 'till you shit them out in a horrible long shit that's probably worst of your life. Cooking kills'm. After I learned that little tidbit from a helpful golduck, I never once ate a fish without charring it 'least a bit first. Seriously, fucking worms living in your stomach. Never chancing it."

Neft shuddered. He'd never thought about that kind of thing, or seen it. "Is that common? I've never seen anything like that."

"Fuck if I know. Just know it sure as fuck isn't happening to me!"

He looked at her for a moment, and then laughed. She tilted her head.

"What's so funny?"

"I don't know," he said. "Just -- the way you said it maybe? Well, anyway, thanks."

"What for?"

"Well dragging me out of the waterfall for one."

"Oh, right. Silly me. Forgot to rub your snippy little beak in that fact. You'd think --"

"Snippy beak? You've got more snip in that muzzle of yours than any bird I know!" Neft's eyes sparkled with a smile while he relaxed onto the floor, leaning against an outcropping of rock in the ground.

Kaya got up and flipped the fish to their other sides, delicately gripping each piece by the tail between two paw pads. As soon as she did, the cavern filled with the enticing scent of roasted fish, the exposed skin golden brown.

Neft waited until Kaya decided the fish was done. He hadn't ever cooked his fish before, and she was clearly a veteran. The buizel pulled the fish free with careful paws after a short time roasting, during which Neft barely kept himself from leaning in to peck at the meal. She dropped two in front of each of them.

The fish were delicious. He'd never tasted anything quite like them before. Looking up at the buizel, he thought about how she wasn't like anyone he'd seen before either. She talked a lot about listening to other pokemon, but Neft did that all the time. He was a bird. He heard things as he flew close to the ground and perched in trees, and yet he didn't strike rocks together to make fire.

Despite her bluntness, Kaya was a mystery, and an alluring one at that. He caught himself staring at her when she glanced up halfway through her meal. He forced his head back down, embarrassed with himself. She'd saved his life and given him the opportunity to feel water rushing through his feathers like he'd always dreamed of, even if he'd been terrified at the time. The least he could do was be polite.

"Do you think rock types have dicks?"

Neft blanched. "What?"

"You know. Dicks. Like, the rest of them is rock. Are they rock dicks? Or like normal dicks coming out of their rock bodies? That'd be weird."

Was she serious? Heat flushed through Neft's face. He couldn't believe what she was saying. "You're the one who knows the rock types!" he squawked. "You'd know this, not me!"

"I never asked to see their dicks! Like, how do you even ask that? Hey geodude, can you show me if your dick is also rocks?"

Neft continued to stare at her for a few minutes, and then covered his beak with a wing to hide the uncontrollable laughter that broke forth. Kaya on the other hand, leaned right back with paws propping her up from the ground and guffawed.

"Is this something you ask everyone you meet?" he asked through gasps, catching his breath.

"Nah, just you," she said. She scratched behind her ear, not laughing anymore but a wide smile covering her face. Neft liked the smile. It looked good on her. She continued, "I was just looking at your feathers and thinking, you know, what if rock types think we've got weird dicks like that?"

"We?"

"Oh shut up! I guess I deserved that. No, I don't have a dick, in case you were wondering," she said. "I mean like, if they've got rock dicks, do they think you've got a feather dick? Maybe a beak-like one? What about me, or -- you know -- a male buizel like me. Maybe they think he had a dick make out of orange fur!"

"Insightful."

"You don't have a dick made out of feathers, do you?" Kaya asked, her muzzle stretched in a smirk.

Neft snorted. "I don't."

"I don't believe you. Prove it."

That, the pidgeotto certainly didn't expect. His eyes widened. He wasn't quite as good as some of his friends at picking up on the social cues of other species. Pidgeotto talked to him regularly, but buizels? Was this just some sort of silly buizel thing? She did seem to enjoy mocking him and messing around, but... she was looking at him expectantly.

"You know, you were saying you didn't know how to ask a rock type to see its -- uh -- but I mean, I think this is how you'd do it."

Kaya blushed. It was hard to see through her orange fur, but Neft could tell from the way she shifted her eyes and put a paw to her forehead as if the fur there was matted the wrong way. Pidgey evolutions did the same sort of thing.

"I want to fly," she said.

"What are you trying to --"

Kaya interrupted him, talking louder until Neft stopped. Her ears were flat. "I want to fly, and you're big enough to carry me. I'll touch your dick and stuff, and you take me flying after. Deal?"

There were a thousand ways that Neft wasn't okay with this. Kaya herself was fidgeting, running her paws through the fur of her haunches as she looked at everything in the cave except him.

"And you've done this before?"

"No."

"No, I mean like --"

"Sex! Yes. I know what you meant. I haven't. I've seen males in the wild, but I haven't touched one or anything."

"And you want to, well, you know, just so you can fly?"

She stared down towards the ground and nodded.

"I'll take you flying if you take me swimming again," Neft said. His heart pounded hard in his chest, and his dick was just about ready to rebel. What was he doing? Looking at her again, Neft couldn't help but picture her in ways that he certainly couldn't continue on about without needing to cover himself.

"What?" her eyes darted up, right back into his, with only the faintest trace of her blush remaining behind them. "You're just going to say no?" She paused again and then turned her head away again, propeller tails lashing behind her. "Is it 'cause of our species? I'm not, uh, attractive to you?"

"No! You're really hot!" Neft blurted out before slinging a wing up to cover his beak. His eyes widened, and he watched her for a reaction, terrified about how she'd react to hearing that from a bird pokemon, about as far from a buizel as one could get.

However, Kaya didn't seem to be perturbed by his admission. Instead, she dropped to all fours and, after a moment of hesitation, scampered over to him. She awkwardly brushed away the fish bones beside him, and then sat back up. She set a paw on his haunch, much less pronounced than her own more pronounced, orange-furred haunches.

"I -- if I didn't make it a deal, leave out the part in there where you gotta take me flying later, could I, you know, touch it?"

Neft nodded.

Kaya awkwardly slid her paw through the feathers along the inside of his haunch. "There's not like balls or a sheath down there, right?"

"No, I mean, I don't think so. If I do, I," he shut his beak, looking away from her and his lower belly, where a tip of bright red was poking out between feathers. It was amazing that he'd been so cold flying through a hailstorm only a short time ago. Now, his body was flush with heat and warm paws were brushing his feathers, shifting them and tickling his skin.

"You don't know what a sheath is?" She looked up at him, her paw slipping across the feathers of his groin before bumping into the heat of his cock. Her paw jerked back as if she'd felt a jolt of static electricity, but then inched forward again.

"I -- no. I just kinda have a slit down there, with my dick inside it until I get hard. Is that a sheath?"

"Oh." She frowned and her paw hovered right next to the tip of his length, not touching. "My sister never told me about bird pokemon parts."

"Your sister?"

She slapped his leg hard enough to sting. "Don't make me talk about my fucking sister when I'm about to feel your dick."

Neft nodded sheepishly and rubbed his wing where she hit his leg. She nudged it out of the way and rubbed the spot herself.

"Sorry," she said, "I guess I brought it up." She patted his leg, and then slid her paw into the feathers of his chest. Her small claws gently scratched through his fur and set Neft's leg twitching, before her paw back down between his legs.

A shiver rose from his groin, traveling up along the length of his spine. Her rough paw pad pressed against the tip of his length and pushed. It bent back slightly, not too firm yet, but more of it slid from the slit between his feathers, and grew more rigid.

"Hey, uh, Kaya," Neft said as her finger dragged down along the exposed skin of the half-extended shaft, "Could I feel you, too?"

She hesitated, her paw hovering at the base of his cock. It still dragged against his skin. Every other heartbeat brought a slight throb to his length, pressing further into the chill air and up along her paw-pad. Then she took her paw away again, and Neft realized just how much his body had tensed in anticipation of her next movement. He exhaled.

Kaya lay down on her side in front of him so her body curled around to his side, and her head and forepaws lay close to his pink cock, nearly fully erect. The length throbbed in front of her twitching nose. She nudged her head closer, sniffing again. Neft's heart beat like a stampede of tauros.

She didn't say he could touch her parts, or even look at them, but Neft figured that she'd moved in that way so he'd have better access. He looked down and tried to meet her eyes, which were locked on the veiny length throbbing between his legs, hard as the stone he sat on. His wing guided her haunch up. It stiffened, but he could tell it was her muscles working to help hold her leg up and not her trying to stop him. The smile that offeredx was nervous, but encouraging nonetheless.

"Hey uh," she said. Her haunch relaxed, leaving most of the weight of her leg on his wing. "Before we go any further, could you kiss me?" She paused, and then grinned sheepishly. "It'd be nice to have a first kiss before I put your dick in my muzzle."

"You're going to put my uh -- my dick in your muzzle?"

Despite what he'd come to expect, no witty retort came from the buizel. She just nodded and said, "I think so. Not now, but soon maybe? You're okay with that, right? I well, I mean, you asked about me, and I'm okay with you touching me too. Or doing more, if you want to, you know."

Neft didn't know what she meant, but he was happy to oblige with a kiss. He'd imagined kisses since he was just a chick, watching his mom and dad sneak pecks on each other's cheeks. Back then, it was just a cute thing that mommies and daddies did to each other and to children to make them feel happy and loved. Then Neft had grown older, and while his parents' kisses on his cheek stayed innocent, the ones they gave each other when they thought he wasn't looking didn't.

He looked down at Kaya, and moved his wrist, the bony bend of his wing before it became just feather, from her haunch to her cheek and brushed through the two black patches that stood out from the tan fur. She shivered under his touch. Her skin was so hot. Did she feel as flustered as he did right then, as if he'd pressed charcoals from the fire to his cheeks?

He wanted to think so, and she certainly looked that way right then: flustered, excited, and more than a little nervous about what they were doing. Exactly how he felt.

Her muzzle tilted up towards his. She closed her eyes, so he figured he should close his too. He leaned over and her lips brushed the hard surface of his beak. He felt them clearly, the strange sensation shooting a tingly warmth down his spine. His mouth opened enough to let her tongue inside, her muzzle locking around his beak like it had been meant for that purpose. It felt a little uncomfortable, and Neft couldn't stop wondering if his beak was too sharp and he would accidentally cut something. His mom and dad both had firm, rough beaks to kiss each other with, not a soft, furred muzzle like Kaya's.

The squishy wetness of her lips felt so weird, but in a good way that he imagined another beak never could. He leaned into the kiss and joined her tongue with his own. He wasn't sure how much he liked that. Spit tasted like spit, and another pokemon's spit wasn't much more appetizing, but he loved the way that her tongue brushed faintly against his and then pressed against it as if it was wrapped up in its own hesitating game of intimacy.

However, with his cock throbbing like it had a mind of its own, Neft found himself less able to focus on the buizel's passionate muzzle. He brushed a wing along her cheek again, and a gentle sigh rumbled from her throat, resonating through his beak. He pulled back, Kaya reluctantly doing the same. A touch of the wrist of his wing to his beak came away damp, the evidence of her muzzle's recent presence dribbling down, cold without the warmth of her lips.

It barely took a touch to her haunch before she had it raised for him again. And this time, Neft heard no interruption.

The orange fur between her legs thinned around her crotch, not entirely, but enough when combined with the damp patch of matted fur that he could see the two lines of pink underneath. They furrowed up into a hood that blended into her orange coat. Carefully, he brushed some of the damp fur out of the way. Her leg lifted higher, and the slit parted slightly. A line of a spit-like liquid stretched between the two inner walls of delicate, damp pink.

A look back at Kaya placed her eyes square on his cock, not willing to look at him as he explored between her legs. However, after realizing he wasn't moving, she shot him a glare and said, "Are you gonna touch it, or just make me hold my leg up all night?" Neft chirped as her paw squeezed his length without warning. He waited for her to let go of it again, but she didn't.

He pressed the wrist of his wing to the lower lip of her folds and dragged it down, though he couldn't pull well with the lack of traction on his wing. Kaya helped, reacing a paw down, curling two digits around her other lip, and spreading it open. She blushed clear through her cheek fur when he glanced at her.

The buizel's pink insides were soft and wet, puffy like the inside of her cheek.Two slight lines of skin arced the top of her slit up to a slight nub and the pointed hood above. Her hole itself was splayed slightly apart at the base, and the pidgeotto watched intent as it squeezed with her muscles. She squeezed gently at his cock right after, drawing a gasp and shiver from the bird pokemon.

He let his wrist slide from the puffy fold it stretched out down to the delicate pink itself, pressing against the wetness. It was so warm and slick, the skin giving way to his wing. Heart pounding and eyes still locked onto her folds, he slid his digit-like wrist around, testing the warmth, feeling how he could so easily press inside, even as her muscles squeezed and clenched. He moved his wing back and forth, sliding it just inside her, watching to gauge her reaction. He was rewarded with a soft moan and her muzzle lolling open in a pant.

Neft shuddered. The buizel's paw was moving on his cock. Her paw pads squeezed delicately on the tender skin as they brushed up and down, little blips of feeling pinging through his shaft. The pads were uncomfortably rough, but he didn't complain. Despite the scratching, they shot quick jolts of pleasure up through his body. It was hard to match that kind of grip with a wing.

A hearty glob of precum oozed out of his tip, ready to help ease the roughness. Kaya's eyes followed its path as it dribbled down his length, and she paused her rubbing to catch a droplet of it on her pad. With a lick, her muzzle scrunched up slightly, but she leaned forward to sniff close to his throbbing shaft.

"Does it taste okay?" Neft asked.

"Yeah, it's just --"

His wrist had stopped moving while he asked her, lodged in between the buizel's folds. His feathers were wet and sticky with her fluids. He started again, pressing it deeper inside her tight, hot passage.

"It's weird," she finished, her words distorted by a squeaking gasp. "Like, salty and tangy maybe, but it's okay."

She licked his shaft, and Neft's whole body shook. He could feel every centimeter of her rough yet slick tongue dragging along it. It tingled with a static electricity of pleasure that sent his shaft into overdrive to provide her with more precum oozing out of his tip.

"I -- I'd do the same for you, but," Neft said, his words punctuated by heavy breaths.

"Beak, yeah, I get it," Kaya said. "Shit's sharp. Don't worry, that, well, that wing feels really nice. Keep doing that." She leaned back over his cock, her muzzle open. Instead of licking the veiny length, however, she dipped her muzzle down over top of it.

The sensation washed over his cock like a warm, wet blanket wrapping him inside. Then, he squirmed as her tongue slid across the tip, sparking a sharp tingling pleasure. It flicked against his length again. He groaned.

His first instinct was to lean back against the rock, thrusting his hips into the warm wetness of the orange and tan muzzle, but he held himself back. Her eyes were closed and her paw held the base of his length, keeping it steady as she shifted her head up and down.

"That feels wonderful," he gasped. He tried to show his appreciation with his wing in her folds, slipping it back and forth inside her increasingly slick slit. He drew it around the delicate skin inside, hovering over the little nub at the top when she let out a sudden squeaky gasp around his shaft.

Encouraged, the pidgeotto rubbed the wrist of his wing against her clit, feathers tickling the wet skin and fur around it. She reacted accordingly, blushing heavily through her fur. Her propeller tail kept twitching and starting to spin, only to calm back down for a moment before twitching again. She arced her body and curled her toes, belly and groin pressing towards the pidgeotto, but her muzzle didn't stray from Neft's throbbing cock, even as her eyes widened and drifted out of focus.

The movements didn't feel quite as good with her attention drawn away. Her tongue was an afterthought along his shaft, and she slid up and down without focus. But the way her expression contorted and her body tensed and relaxed in beat to his wing furiously rubbing her sensitive nub easily made up for her distraction. Periodically shifting to delve into her hot, squeezing depths or around her lower lips, he loved the little squeaks and gasps that escaped her panting muzzle.

She twitched and her eyes wandered in reaction to his rubs. Watching her in adoration, Neft barely noticed as his own length built up an ever-present barrage of numbingly wonderful sensations. The pleasure welled inside him, and with just enough warning for his eyes to widen and his beak to slip open, a powerful orgasm cascaded through his body like a typhoon.

"Kaya," he gasped.

She looked up at him, and then her eyes widened as a thick glob of pidgeotto cum shot into her muzzle. She sputtered and gasped around his length as Neft arched his back, his muzzle trilling a long, avian moan. He tried to hump forward into her muzzle, but she yanked away from him, thick translucent white cum dribbling over her lips.

Still half-coughing as droplets of seed splattered on Neft's feathers and shaft, she grabbed his cock and stroked it. She vigorously jerked it up and down, shooting another burst of pleasure through his body that erupted in a gasping sort of squack. Cum burst out of his shaft in a thick rope that clung all the way from Kaya's forehead down the side of her muzzle. Another landed over her small, barely perceptible ears and drew a line along the side of her face. She turned her head for the next glob to hit just below her eye.

Neft's beak hung open, but not just from the overwhelming pleasure. She wanted it on her face! He was baffled but couldn't focus on that, not with the intensity of his orgasm. His cock twitched like mad with his seed shooting out in thick bursts.

He rode out his orgasm with his beak ajar and tongue lolling to the side -- dangerous for a sharp beak, but he didn't care. His whole world was the wet suckling of the buizel's muzzle and the rough yanking of her paw pads bringing jolts of fiery pleasure. He barely remembered to rub and push along her velvety insides, her muscles squeezing around tight around his wrist.

"Fuck!" Kaya gasped, a long strand of cum dribbling down from her wet muzzle fur. She yanked his cock a few more times, and the last of his seed dribbled down over her paw. Neft shook, his cock suddenly burning with every movement of her paw.

"Kaya! Paw off! Please!" he gasped. His wrist slid out of her folds, dribbling with her sticky fluids.

She let go. "Sweet Arceus, give a girl a warning!" she said, another cough splattering droplets of cum onto the bird's haunch. She rubbed her cheek, careful not to disrupt any of the strands of cum that had landed there. After another deep breath, a grin settled over her face. "Like my new look?"

Neft quivered, his chest puffing as he looked over the buizel, orange and tan fur distorted with dark lines and splotches where his cum had landed and sunk into her fur.

"I was afraid it'd slide off like water," she said, her smile more sheepish. "I'm glad it didn't though."

"Did your sister tell you --"

A paw struck his leg again, stinging. "Shit! Neft! Shut the fuck up! What did I just say about my sister?"

"Don't talk about her when you're about to touch my dick? But you're not," Neft said, proud of himself for twisting her words like she'd been doing to him. However, the buizel reached forward and grabbed it again, the red flesh already halfway sunk into his slit.

"There? We good?" she asked, but didn't let go.

Neft nodded. "I uh, anyway. I think you should wear it more often."

"What?" She tilted her head, and a bead of cum on her nose dribbled into her nostril. She snorted and coughed, wiping it away.

"You were asking how I liked the new look."

"Oh," she said, and then her voice grew louder. "Oh! Fuck, am I already rubbing off on you like that?"

"You just did." Neft's eyes shone with mirth, and he tilted his beak towards her.

Kaya laughed with a wry smile and a blush. "Okay, I walked into that one" Her rough paw stroked slowly up and down the pidgeotto's length. It throbbed, halting its retreat into his slit. A shiver coursed down Neft's spine.

"Sorry. Is it hurting? You were really crazy with the 'Paw off! Paw off!' so I just--"

"No, it's fine, he said, gasping slightly as he spoke. The pleasure didn't numb the scraping pads quite like they did when he was first aroused, but it felt good enough that he didn't want her to stop. "That was," He paused. "You felt amazing, your muzzle and everything. Sweet Arcticuno I didn't think anything could feel that good!"

A second orange buizel paw wrapped around his haunch, and Kaya pulled herself half up on his lap. "You sure? I think there might be something."

The way her fur brushed against his feathers made him shiver. She was soft but warm and firm, like a hatchling still with its fuzz. He'd never been so intimately close to a mammal. "What do you mean?"

"C'mon, that bird brain of yours can't be that dense," she said. Her grin, however, told him she was teasing. Her muzzle twisted as she wriggled up along his body until her muzzle could touch the tip of his beak if he looked down to her.

"You wanna...?"

"Fuck?"

"Oh. Yeah." He thought that's what she meant, but with his heart clamoring, her paw wrapped tight around his shaft, and her face so close to his, he couldn't be sure of any thought going through his mind.

She laughed, and nervousness crept back into her smile. "You're so fucking bad at talking sexy, you know that?"

He nodded, and she yanked at his cock, causing him to squawk. Then, she let go and shifted over top of him until he felt his hardness brushing through damp fur, and the soft, wet, skin that he knew was her folds. Her tan cheeks pressed to his chest and then up by his beak.

She didn't hesitate when her muzzle, still salty and smelling strongly of his cum, slid in along his beak. It was familiar this time. Even though Neft froze, worrying that he'd hear a sharp squeak of pain from her accidentally sticking herself on the beak's hook, the buizel girl moved confidently into the kiss.

The feeling was like a fire had ignited in his belly. Intestines flipped and wiggled and tied themselves into knots at the soft, after-sex touch of her lips on his beak, even though it was his second time feeling them. Her tongue wrapping around his, filling his muzzle with her own unique-tasting saliva, as well as the new salty flavor that he knew was his own doing.

A paw pushed against his chest and he lay back against the rock he had propped himself up with. Kaya straddled her haunches up around his belly. His cock was already hard again, with the assistance of Kaya's tongue exploring his beak, vigorous in its attack. The hot length pressed between her legs and, after she shifted, he realized it was touching skin between the damp fur. His eyes widened.

Kaya's muzzle vibrated with a soft chirr-like sigh. She knew exactly what she was doing. The sparkle in her eyes told him that much, if the gentle rocking of her hips up and down along his throbbing shaft didn't make it clear enough already.

Her folds parted for him on the next rock, his shaft nestling in the crevice even as it didn't penetrate her, riding through the length of her damp slit. The squishy outer lips cradled his tip as it slipped along her sensitive clit, out into the air that felt chill with the slick fluids coating his length, and then back into the wet, squishy warmth.

A strand of saliva hung between them when the kiss broke. Neft blushed as Kaya brought a paw up to catch the strand, holding it for a moment before sliding the paw along Neft's cheek feathers.

"Do you have any idea how hot you are?" she asked, her voice low and ragged in a near whisper. A shudder traveled down Neft's back. He wasn't sure if it was from her words, the husky tone, or the warm wetness slicking along his rock-hard cock.

After Neft shook his head, Kaya pressed her blushing muzzle to his cheek where her paw had been a moment earlier.

"You're so fucking bad at talking sexy," she said as a wriggly smile stretched over her muzzle. Her paw slid down his shoulder and traced a long feather that draped down his wing, before slipping into the feathers of his chest.

Her body was so close to his. Fur tickled feathers, and the slight vibrations of those feathers were twanging branches pulled down on a tree, rattling back and forth into place. It was everywhere on his body at once. And she was so close, her hot breath on his neck.

Neft shivered with the intimacy. Her touches felt like sparks of static across his body, and with how she straddled his throbbing shaft he was in heaven so close to her. And then it happened. The paw that wasn't buried in the feathers of his chest used his shoulder to lift her body up just enough that when she slid back down against Neft, his cock finally entered her.

She gasped. Her eyes widened, and she pulled back just far enough to look into Neft's eyes, muzzle pressed side to side with his beak. Neft shuddered. It was so hot inside her, and her walls squeezed around his shaft in the perfect way that no muzzle or paw could.

Every movement brought with it a tingling pleasure as the buizel steadily sunk down onto him, bursting in tiny, burning sensations like the sparks from the rocks Kaya had struck to make fire. With a squawking moan, Neft tried to arch his hips forward, but it was difficult with his partner smothering his body, fur against feathers. She had total control.

"You have no idea how amazing this is," she whispered in his ears.

Neft's cock throbbed inside her, pressing at her tightness, which squeezed back in response like a hot, wet, padless paw gripping him in his entirety.

As the body on top of him held still, the pidgeotto found a brief respite. No pleasure shot through him, and even with his cock snug and twitching inside the buizels body, he could get his bearings. He wrapped his long, dexterous wing around Kaya's back and tried to emulate how she ran her paw through his feathers. He couldn't, not with a blunt, digit-less wing, but he heard her sigh and knew that what he was doing was alright.

His other wing wrapped around her body, holding her to his chest as she held him hilted inside her, tingles periodically flashing through Neft's body as her muscles squeezed. Then, after a gentle lick to his cheek, she began to move again. Her hind quarters lifted away from his body, and the overwhelming sensation forced Neft's beak open to pant, a burning white pleasure riding up along his front and massing in his belly like a hoard of fluttering butterfree. Her body moved slowly, and the breeze chilled Neft's cock, damp with the wetness of her passage.

This time, she didn't spare him a break as she lifted nearly off him. Her rump lowered right back down into his groin, with her muzzle never moving from next to his beak. Her panting breath clung to his cheek feathers. The closeness made him feel like every other moment of his life he'd been missing something, and only now had he been found it. The wonderful tingling in his body wasn't even from her tightness or her warmth, but instead her tender closeness to him.

But the tightness and warmth felt damn good. She slid steadily up and down along his throbbing shaft, establishing a rhythmic motion that brought with it a constant barrage of sensation. The warmth in his chest swirled. It buzzed like bees were rocketing around inside. His face scrunched to better handle it.

"Kaya, can we kiss again?" Neft asked with a wisp of breath.

He was afraid she didn't even hear, but then her muzzle pulled back just enough to slip around his beak. Lips pressed against the hard surface again. Little tingles of fur and whiskers brushing against his beak sent shivers down his spine, magnifying the pleasure of her body around his shaft, squeezing, sliding. He arched moved his hips up, barely able to control them, but a firm paw pressing against his chest told him to relax.

She rode him faster, the wet slapping of their lovemaking echoing through the cavern. A smile lit Neft's eyes as he wondered whether any curious rock types were watching. Maybe they wanted to know what mammal dicks were like. He almost laughed but held it in, not wanting to disturb Kaya, whose muzzle was pressed so passionately into his own. His tongue joined hers this time, exploring her muzzle, hot and squishy. He knew how it felt around his shaft, but her tongue against his own was a whole different experience.

The pleasure steadily grew overbearing. Neft tried to hold himself back as long as he could, even as the buizel moved her hips like they were shaking with an earthquake. His cock burned with furious, fiery ecstasy inside her, straining against her walls that hugged and squeezed so tight. Her muzzle was slack in his beak, panting even through the kiss, neither of them wanting to break it. It felt so good to be inside her. It felt so good to be close to her. He never wanted the moment to end.

He gasped, shuddered, and a moan chirped right into Kaya's muzzle. A strong pulse twitched his cock, and in liquid hot pleasure, he felt his seed gush out inside the buizel. He squawked, arching his back and pulling barely away from the buizel, her eyes widening as she understood what was happening.

Kaya plunged down on top of him. The pleasure that crashed through Neft's body was white hot, bursting past his eyes and shortening his breath. It rattled his body with tremors. His partner's paws slipped through his feathers and squeezed so his heart skipped a beat.

He held himself inside her, her walls clamped tight and hot around his shaft. His body was a bundle of nerves on fire with ecstasy. The sensation was overwhelming, her body so close against him, panting, squirming, brushing fur against feathers.

Neft squawked again, wings squeezing around Kaya, holding her against him even though she made no effort to move away. He couldn't feel his cum inside her, she was so hot and wet already, but he knew it was there, running down along his cock as his orgasm died down.

"I -- I'm done" he gasped as his cock gave a final twitch inside her. Her insides were suddenly overwhelming, prickling like a limb that had fallen asleep. After a squeaking gasp and a shifting of his hips, Kaya lifted off of him.

He looked down as she did, his shaft steadily slipping out from inside her, the sensations burning in a half-pleasurable sharpness. Cum dribbled along the base of her slit, the pink closing around it as it let go of the pidgeotto's tip which glistened with their mixture of fluids.

Kaya swung a haunch over Neft's body, her arms never leaving their tight embrace, even as he had to adjust his wings for her. She looked up at him with half-lidded eyes and a wobbly smile on her muzzle. "That was fucking amazing."

---

"Are you sure it's okay?" Neft asked for the third time, staring down at the underground lake. It didn't roil like the river outside, but after dipping a wingtip in, the pidgeotto realized just how fast the current was. "I mean, I want to, I'm not backing down or anything. It's just --"

"Don't be an abra," Kaya said, a gleam in her eyes. "You said yesterday that you wanted to swim. Not backing out now, are you?"

"I did! And I know! It's just that, like, wouldn't it be better to do it somewhere slower? That'd be safer and--"

Soft paws on his back shoved him forward. Neft squawked. The current rushed towards him. The sound of the water crashing against the rock walls echoed loudly until Neft hit the surface and they vanished into the buzzing of waterlogged ears.

The shock of the impact rattled his bones, but he held his beak clamped desperately shut as his eyes opened wide in the swirling current. It bore him quickly, and the dimly-lit surface steadily pulled farther away.

Where was Kaya? Panic surged through Neft. She should be there with him, holding him and gently guiding him though the water. He unfurled his wings with difficulty, batting water out of the way like massive but ineffectual, flippers. They thrashed, trying to propel him upwards again, back to the surface where he'd find safety.

A sturdy paw wrapped around his waist. Another followed, turned him in a direction -- he wasn't sure which. His body lurched forward as if he were diving through the air.

Water rushed through his feathers like a surging wind, yet it dragged at him with a substance that the air didn't have. It felt like a steady, firm preening of all his feathers at once. His heart lurched, the thrill greater than when he fell through the air towards prey.

They broke the surface of the water with a resounding splash that rung in his ears. He hacked out water and gasped air to replace it.

"Kaya! Articuno watch over me -- what was that?"

"Thought you needed a little push." Her muzzle slipped into the crook of his neck, his feathers sopping wet. Her touch shot a bolt of exhilaration down through his body. Everything was less terrifying than it had been the moment before.

Kaya had him. Her arms were firm around his waist. Even with the fast-moving water carrying them towards the mouth of the cave and the thundering waterfall beyond, Neft knew that she wouldn't let anything happen to him. And that let him enjoy the deep water all around him which grew brighter by the moment with the light that seeped in from outside as the roaring crash of falling water drew nearer.

"I'm gonna take you under again for the waterfall. Alright?"

Neft nodded, and then he was plunged back under.

It was another world to him. The water's drag on his every movement left him with a sense of time moving slower. It was a complete inverse of what flying was like, the winds barreling him forward at high speed. There was such power in the air, and Neft could only tap into it to guide himself. Underwater, however, it was as if every motion took deliberate effort. Even just turning his head, he felt the water push against him. It was so relaxing. It made him just want to float and let all his worries seep away.

Unlike flying, there was no pressure to keep moving. He couldn't spiral out of control with a single gust of wind. As they swam underneath, the thrumming of the water's invisible downward force pounded on his back in a rough massage, but with Kaya there, he had no fear.

Roiling water brushed past his face like a far smaller and denser cloud falling the wrong way. He preferred it to a cloud. Clouds were large and boring. They were fun to dart in and out of around the edges, but flying through them was often dull and disorienting.

Kaya angled them back upwards, and they swam through a last, gentle corner of the roil. Neft's eyes grinned bright at the natural massage of the water, and they rose back towards the day-lit surface.

"That was awesome!" Neft said as they broke up through the surface again. He flapped his wings, splashing water and nearly dislodging Kaya's grip around his waist.

Kaya just grunted and led him over to the shore, where they sat down beside each other in the shallows. Neft turned to look down at the buizel, heat suddenly flushing back through his body.

His words caught in his throat for a moment before he said, "Do you want to, want to kiss again? Or, if it was just a one-time thing, you know, that's--"

Kaya interrupted him by putting a paw to his opposite shoulder, pulling him to better face her, and then pressing her muzzle against his beak again. Neft's heart fluttered. The kiss was familiar this time, the fourth he'd had from the soft buizel lips sliding along the hard shell of his beak. Still, it tingled and a shiver ran down his back like the first time she'd done it.

Nervously, he glanced around them as she wrapped her paws around his back and pulled him gently closer. The lightly snow-dusted forests grew dark with the shade of the canopies, and he couldn't see any pokemon inside, but he couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. What would they think about a buizel kissing a pidgeotto? Different species could still make eggs, but that was rare, and only with pokemon who were already similar. Neft was a bird. Kaya wasn't.

After pulling back, Kaya had a funny smile on her muzzle. "You get all the kisses you want, bird boy."

He nodded to her, and forced another smile. The kiss really was wonderful to him, but after that nervous thought ran through his mind, it didn't want to leave. They were so different. If she still wanted to kiss him, even then after the cave, what did that mean for them? He couldn't give her eggs, that was for certain.

"So uh," Neft said. He had been about to ask her about her desire to go flying and if that and the sex back in the cave were all she really wanted, but he was too afraid that the answer would involve her taking off right after, never to see each other again. "It's really beautiful, isn't it? I didn't really get a chance to see it with that storm."

Leaning back onto the muddy grass on the riverbank, much of the frost from the hailstorm having melted away in the sun, Neft looked up along the sharp cliff wall that rose forebodingly over the forest. The massive waterfall thundered in his ears and periodically misted them with light droplets of water. He nearly complained about his feathers getting wet again, but he realized that him being able to fly sooner could mean Kaya wanting him to leave sooner.

"Hey, check that out," Kaya said, jabbing an elbow into the pidgeotto's gut.

Neft chirped in surprise, but followed her pointing paw to a geodude in an alcove of the cliff wall, bashing its fists against the rocks against the rock over and over again, several dozen wingspans past the river.

"Yeah?"

"Should we ask if he has a rock dick?" Kaya stuck out her tongue.

Neft laughed, but his chest squeezed. "Quieter!" he insisted, again turning his head to see if anyone was watching. He didn't think they were, but pokemon were always about. More importantly, however, the geodude hadn't even seemed to notice them. "And no! No way! That'd be so offensive, right?"

"Shut it bird brain, I asked you to see your feather dick."

Neft paused. "Yeah, but then. So, uh, would you -- you know?"

That caught Kaya off guard. Color bled from the skin where the fur was thin on her cheeks. "What? You're asking if I'd --"

"Fuck a geodude?" he jumped in, thinking he had something more to add. When he realized he didn't, he clamped his beak back shut and felt the heat flush through his cheeks.

Kaya didn't say anything for a few moments, and neither did he. Then, she pressed closer to him, fur tickling between his feathers. She asked, "And would you, ya know, would you be jealous?"

His heart beat hard. He figured she could feel it too, but she didn't comment. Pausing again, Neft considered. He knew immediately that he'd be incredibly jealous, but he also knew that if she didn't want to hear that, it could drive a wedge between them. Maybe avoiding that wedge was better than taking the risk.

"It's your life," he said, trying to keep his voice level. However, his stomach went topsy turvy, as if being thrown around again by the crashing waters of the waterfall. "I couldn't tell you not to or anything."

Once again, silence tiptoed between them, balancing on a bare thread. Neft did what he could do and savored the moment by wrapping a wing around the buizel. She reached up and held his wingtip in her small paw and put it to her chest

"I'd be jealous," Kaya said, "if you went and got yourself some geodude lady and fucked her. I'd be really jealous."

"I would too," Neft said.

"I'm not into ladies." His feathers parted slightly with the buizel nuzzling against his chest. "But you know, a geodude guy..." She tilted her head up and smirked at him.

"I'd be jealous of a geodude guy, jerk. You know what I meant."

She turned her head back down and wiggled against him. "I do. But you're so fun to tease."

"Water rattata."

"Some of my best friends are rattata."

"No they aren't."

Kaya grinned and pulled at a feather. "You're catching on."

They cuddled in front of the river, Neft afraid to let her go. She was warm and soft against his body. Her breathing held steady, chest rising and falling against him. Every dozen heartbeats, her twin tails flicked and brushed against his haunches. Her left paw wrapped around his back to hold him close while her other pressed to his chest, periodically rubbing gentle circles.

A few times, Neft wanted to say something, try to make her laugh or just smile at him, but he thought better of it. It was such a nice moment. He didn't want it to end.

The geodude noticed them, prickling Neft's feathers, but after the brief glance it turned its attention back to the cliff wall and continued punching away at the steadily deepening hole in front of it. Were other pokemon around them doing the same? Or did they see a buizel and a pidgeotto together with disgust?

"What's wrong?"

"Huh?" Neft asked.

"You got all tense all of a sudden."

He shook his head. "It's fine. I was just thinking, you know --"

"If we'd get to keep doing this? Like, uh, as mates?" she finished for him. Her voice was fast and jittery. This time, Neft felt Kaya's heartbeat pounding. "I mean, you don't really know me, and I've been kind of an ass to you. I uh, I don't mean to be like that. Honest. I just, that's how I talk since, well, I don't wanna seem boring, you know?"

After Neft's beak had sufficient time to hang open, eyes wide, Kaya let go of him and collapsed onto her back on the muddy river bank, her head crunched blades of grass that were still frozen stiff with frost. "That's not what you were going to say, was it? Shit! Arceus fucking damn it. This always happens to me. I can't just sit around and wait for you to say whatever; I've gotta jump in and make a miltank-sized ass of myself." She shut her eyes.

Neft's beak closed and then opened once again. He paused to meet the eyes of the buizel girl, her smile twisted by guilt into a frown. "I was going to say how nervous I was," Neft said. "I mean, I'm a bird pokemon, and you're not. I know it's normal with like a vaporeon and a ninetails or something, but they can still breed. We're so different."

Kaya's face scrunched, but she didn't say anything. However, she did shift closer to him so that she was pressed up against his body again.

"Sorry," Neft continued. "I'm not so good at this either. I'd really like to keep doing this too. But isn't 'mates' a big word for you to use here? I mean, maybe it's different between bird pokemon and --"

Kaya cut him off, "No! You're right. That was stupid. We met fucking yesterday, or uh, we fucking met yesterday." She hesitated a moment and then stuck out her tongue. Then, she leaned back up and nuzzled against his side again. "We fucked and met yesterday! Mates wasn't the right word. I -- Well, I wanna try something longer though." Her propeller tails buzzed happily behind her, winding up and settling down every few spins. "If you do too."

"I'd like to test the waters." Neft's grin shone in his eyes.

Kaya playfully swatted his beak. "And I'd like to test the air."

"You know," Neft said, shifting to better hold the buizel up. Her back was slightly muddy from having laid on the ground. "My feathers are mostly dry by now. We've been in the sun here for a while."

The buizel had that look in her eyes, the same one he had when she asked him if she'd take him swimming. A hungry look for something she never would have thought she'd be able to experience. "Right now?"

"Why not? I mean, I think I can carry you, you're not too big for me yet. A floatzel might be a problem, but --"

"I'm not evolving."

"Oh, okay." He didn't know what else to say to her sudden, forceful interjection, so he continued, "Do you want to go flying with me, then?"

"Yes!"

Neft fidgeted, rubbing his wingtip along the back of his neck. "First, I don't want to make this hard on you, but do you have vines to tie yourself to me? I've never carried anyone while flying before, and from the stories my mom used to tell me, that's what they did." After squeezing her against him in a quick hug, he added in a whisper, "I don't know what I'd do if something went wrong and you fell off. I don't think I could take it."

"I'll hold on tight," Kaya promised, "but I've got some thin vines I cut free back in the cave! I use'm to to make nets. A treecko showed me how once."

She dove into the river without waiting another moment, and Neft was left sitting alone on the shore. His feathers were crumpled and flattened against his body where she had been pushed against him. It felt wrong for nothing to be there.

He flapped his wings a few times, testing his flight feathers. They were reasonably dry, certainly nothing he hadn't dealt with in a minor rainstorm before. He could fly with much worse, although with more risk and greater difficulty. His nestmates would try something like that. Neft, not so much.

It should have been Chyree offering a flight to Kaya. Chyree had always been the best of the three siblings. He showed off all sorts of tricks, loops and swirls that Neft didn't dare imitate. He'd offer Kaya a real experience.

Except Chyree had also been the one to scoff at the thought of anyone riding a pidgeotto. He would have asked if holy Zapdos would allow himself to be ridden, saying that ground creatures were beneath them. He'd looked with disdain on Neft's fascination for swimming. What would he think of carrying a buizel through the sky?

He would've hated it. He wouldn't have given Kaya the time of day.

The buizel popped back out of the water, two loops of dripping-wet vine hanging from her muzzle.

"Are you sure you should be holding that in your mouth?" Neft asked, prodding one where she'd dropped it. Wouldn't her teeth fray the cords? His beak certainly would have.

"What, now you're afraid of a bit of buizel spit?" Kaya said. She leaned up and pecked a wet kiss on Neft's cheek.

He shook his head. "I just --" but he didn't finish his thought. Instead he lifted his wings and let Kaya get to work, wrapping the vine around his chest, diagonally from above his right wing to below his left wing and then behind her back, squeezing up behind him. It was uncomfortable, and Neft quickly realized just how heavy the buizel was. He could manage, though. She'd taken him swimming. He was resolved to take her flying.

The second vine wrapped diagonally across his chest in the opposite direction. This one took longer to put on, with the buizel already squished against his back. She grunted, hissing curses whenever she dropped an end and Neft had to reach down to grab it in his beak, her arms not long enough to grab it and unable to lean over while strapped to his back.

Finally she managed to tie it off, huffing like she'd just raced a ponyta. "Got it! You ready to go? This thing's uncomfortable as shit."

Neft grinned and squawked his agreement. He stood up, and fluttered his wings a few times to wash off any extra moisture and get a feel for the air under his feathers. Then, without warning, he jumped forward, flapped a few times, and fell face first onto the grass.

"Neft! What the fuck?" Kaya said, squirming against his back.

He carefully wobbled back to his feet. "You're heavy! If I can get the first few flaps right, I'll be able to catch lift. It's hard, though!" He gritted his beak. Chyree would be able to do it without a problem, flourishing in a loop or something as he took off.

He leaped again, and forced his wings down in a furious circular flap, straining his muscles. Twice, then three times he forced his wing hard against the still air, wincing at the exertion -- far more than he normally spent taking off.

"Holy shit."

Neft opened his eyes again. His wings were already sore, but his talons were no longer clinging to the muddy ground. Chunks of soil were falling free onto the ground below as he flapped another few powerful gusts to propel himself upward, just above the treeline. The river offered a great place to take off, the branches not reaching far enough to snag at a wing while he was already dealing with the weight.

"Neft! Wow!" Kaya's claws were digging into his back, but the pidgeotto didn't say anything about them. "You can see so far up here! I mean, I uh, I've been to the top of the ridge before, but still!"

With habits and muscle memory taking over, the ache from his initial exertion faded into a dull throb. He wasn't rising as quickly as he normally did, but with the wind under his wings and a buffer of air between him and the ground, he was able to take it easier. His wingbeats thrummed in a slower, steady pattern, gusts of air swooshing behind him as he slowly spiraled up into the air.

"I can take you higher than the ridge!" Neft shouted into the wind. He didn't know if he needed to shout, but the beat of his wings was loud in his ears, and his voice had to carry behind him instead of forward. He figured Kaya would tell him to keep it down in some snarky way if it was a problem.

"Up to the clouds?"

"We can fly into the clouds!" Neft said. He dipped forward slightly, letting the two of them glide through the air and pick up a bit of speed. They were halfway up the ridge that had seemed to tower so high before, the trees beginning to shrink in the distance below. He veered away from the rocky ledge, off in the direction he'd flown from the previous day.

It wasn't a large forest. "You can see out to the plains from here!" Neft shouted again.

"I've got eyes too, feather-dick!"

"I don't have a feather-dick!"

"Whatever! Downy-cock!"

"It's not downy either!"

Kaya laughed, and the sound was enchanting. A smile lit up Neft's eyes like sun shining through crystal, and he dove again, a little deeper this time. Kaya's paws gripped tighter around his neck, her muzzle digging into the feathers behind his cheek.

"Woooo!" she called. Neft cawed in response, and she shouted again. They called back and forth, nonsensical shouts of exhilaration as the pair climbed higher and higher into the sky.

He felt the buizel's head turning behind him. "We're above the cliff! Already? That's so fast!"

"It's faster without a big river-ratatta stuck to my back!"

"Are you calling me fat?"

"You're fluffy!"

Kaya patted the top of his wing in what he could tell was supposed to be a smack. He laughed, and she joined him.

"This is so exhilarating!" she said. "I don't get how you're not always up here! Fuck! I'd give anything for a pair of wings! I'd never stop!"

"My brother Chyree's like that," Neft shouted back. He didn't shout as loud, though. Mentioning his brother drained some of the fun. He shook his head. Why was he thinking about this? "He's always in the air, twirling and doing all sorts of fancy flips and maneuvers. I couldn't ever keep up with him."

"You're doing great! This is amazing!" She was obviously trying to put her heart in her words, but he wondered if the melancholy in his voice wasn't contagious.

"He always prayed to Zapdos, determined to fly like he was wearing the feathers of the electric god himself! Even my sister Tyraatca can fly way better than me! And she was always on about Moltres and strength and stuff!"

"Your siblings have fucking hard to pronounce names!"

"That's what you took from that?" Neft asked, incredulous. A laugh sneaked into his voice anyway. "Like nothing about flying or --"

"You need to shut the fuck up!" Kaya said right into his ear, a little too loudly. Neft winced. "This is amazing! Your flying is awesome! I've never gotten to do anything like this before!"

Neft circled back around. They were nearly over top of the plains and could see far along the rolling hills, the gentle green underneath them periodically rustling as a wide gust of wind rolled across tall grasses.

They were twice again as high as the ridge, now off in the distance. Kaya gasped over his shoulder. He grinned and dove forward again, picking up speed until the wind rushed past them like the water had from Kaya's bursts of speed under the falls.

He aimed back up to lose some speed after half a minute of the rushing wind, his heart beating with Kaya holding him tight, her hot breath on his cheek-feathers.

"Your brother prayed to Zapdos, your sister prayed to Moltres, so do you like pray to --"

"Articuno."

"What?"

Neft shouted, "Articuno!"

"Oh! Ok! Your family's a fucking predictable stereotype!"

Neft laughed right away, his voice joining the buizel's own squeaky laughter. He should have been more upset by everything, but he couldn't find it in himself. Not with the happy buizel squeezed close behind him, shouting out whoops and hollers with every twist and turn he made.

"It's because I always wanted to swim!"

"You what?"

"Swim!"

"No! I heard you, birdbrain! I meant like what the fuck! This is amazing! Swimming's nothing when you can fly like this!"

"That's what Chyree said." The laughter died behind him. She must have known she'd hit a chord.

Kaya was silent for half a dozen beats of his wings before she said, "I'll take you swimming whenever you want, but you've gotta bring me flying again! Okay?"

"Got it!" Neft said. He felt the jubilant beat return to his heart. He'd never felt this way while flying before. But it wasn't the flying. It was Kaya. The buizel squeezed against his back, laughing and shouting, holding him tight, set his heart pounding.

"Kyogre's holy glacier-sized ass! When did the clouds get so close?"

"You were too busy looking down!"

"Well down is too Gods damned fun to look at!" Kaya said, laughing again. "Do we have to go around them?"

"We can go inside them!"

Kaya started to say something, but Neft cut her off with a burst of speed that sent him shooting up into the grey of the thick, low-hanging cloud. It wasn't quite a rain-cloud, but it would be before too long.

From behind him, he heard a squeak, a squeal, and then another whooping shout of triumph as he twisted down to glide back out of the bottom of the cloud.

"They're see-through!"

"They're just water, like how hot-springs have steam come out of them!"

"What? The one I live in doesn't!"

Neft's eyes grinned bright. Kaya knew so much about the world that he didn't. But he had plenty to share as well. "I'll show you sometime! There's one about two day's flight from here, in the mountains to the west."

He had thought that everything would be better if he could swim instead of fly. And swimming was fun. He loved Kaya dragging him through the water, feeling the near weightlessness as he floated in the depths of the river, the currents of the nearby waterfall rushing by his body.

But he'd found a new joy in flying, a joy also there in the water with an orange paw around his waist. He'd never felt it when flying alone before, or even the times when he'd waded into currents on his own. Swimming was fun, flying less so.

He'd pursued swimming with such desire. Yet swimming was nothing compared to this. The joy he saw in Chyree's eyes doing loops and twists and twirls through the sky was nothing compared to this. This was perfect. Kaya's body pressed close against his own, her bright laughter in his ears.