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The Beastmaker's Quest

THEOKRIOS

Sayn felt rather bemused as she watched herself get vigorously pounded by K'teshi. This state of mind was caused mainly by the fact that she wasn't looking at a mirror or through the eyes of one of her constructs, K'teshi was currently away from the Seraglio, and also she was sitting on her chair, in her office. In front of her, on her desk, however, a sordid orgy was unfolding in miniature as the scale-models of herself and her Consorts got down and dirty.

On one hand, she was elated that she'd finally managed to reliably duplicate the feat she had first accomplished in Twinharbor, months ago - animating a statue not of her own making, and lacking any of the structural features (such as joints and moveable eyes) that she usually built into her constructs. The key had turned out to be emotion - though, whether it was purely her own, or also the feelings of the original artist that mattered, remained unclear.

A more recent burst of inexplicable power - when she had caused the very earth to rise up and kick the despicable Unicorn right in the balls - had provided her with the final clue. That particular feat, she had yet to repeat - but perhaps that wasn't surprising. She'd been at an emotional boiling-point, then, and it was pretty hard to artificially induce something like that. On the other hand, it seemed that simply focusing on the emotions invoked by the careful craftsmanship of a well-made statue or figurine was enough to allow her to bring it to life with a touch.

These resulting 'living statues' were different from her normal constructs, though. More independent, more prone to acting on their own... her 'beasts' only really did what they were told, applying their animalistic intelligence solely to the matter of how best to accomplish their assigned goals. The statuettes that now gamboled on her desk, meanwhile, were doing so solely of their own accord - if she gave them an order, they obeyed without hesitation, but left to their own devices they... well, started fucking each other.

This was quite impressive on its own, of course, considering that none of them had been crafted with the requisite gear for such an act. But somehow, that hadn't prevented the little, wood-carved version of Achidias from sporting a nice, smooth, wooden shaft, or the model of K'teshi - carved from a brilliant, sky-blue Agate - from revealing a rock-hard erection, complete with a teeny-tiny knot and microscopic barbs around the head. Her own statue, made from solid gold, displayed even greater flexibility - perhaps because of the material's high magical conductivity. The gleaming surface flowed as if it was liquid, allowing the golden dress to be pulled aside, and some clearly capacious holes to open in the previously contiguous surface.

Thielwen's statue, carved from solid ivory, was having a somewhat harder time - the crisp material seemed more inclined to cracking than to shifting. Certainly, the long, severe dress she was wearing didn't seem like it was likely to go anywhere. But she had managed to part those tiny, marvelously-sculpted lips of hers - with a barely-audible crack - and an equally-tiny tongue had made its way out - which she was now putting to good use, burying her ivory head under Achidias' wooden tail, even as he pounded the equally-wooden model of Lutra. (Who, true to life, didn't wear any clothes beyond some practical-and-decorative leather straps.)

And, of course, not far away, the gleaming, aquamarine miniature copy of Aishee was masturbating furiously. The whole thing was so true to their various preferences and personalities, she could only conclude that it had to be orchestrated primarily by her own subconscious. Maybe something akin to the way she'd split off a portion of herself to create Cybra? Either way, while the original, Elven craftsman might have had a few naughty thoughts in mind while he worked, seeing as he was_crafting the members of a _Harem, he probably didn't know about Aishee's voyeuristic streak, let alone Thielwen's passion for ass-licking.

Feeling perversely guilty, she glanced over at the most magnificent of all the figurines. Korlin, in her true form - made from solid platinum, but with golden scales along her back, and a branched horn that split the light into a rainbow of colors - carved from diamond, no less. It was the only one of the figures she hadn't brought to life. She was... uncertain of what her deep, complex feelings for the statuette's model would make of it, especially considering the staggering level of magical capacity it would have, with such priceless materials going into its construction. And yet, she felt strangely guilty, leaving it standing like that, looking out across the miniature orgy with lifeless, metallic eyes.

With a sigh, she pushed the figurines aside, leaving them to continue their games on a corner of her huge desk, while she determinedly ignored them in favor of the paperwork - which, after all, needed doing! And it wasn't as if the papers on her desk right now were just unimportant busywork. The newly-minted Merman Couriers had been busy, swimming back and forth across the Great Current faster than any ship (well, any CURRENT ship - apparently, there were some daring new designs in the works in Mosvaruch's shipyards, aided by a variety of Beastkin consultants), carrying missives to and from the Southern Continent.

The letters she had written in the aftermath of the abortive rebellion had worked as intended. The Centaurs and the Sharptooth Sirrush had, somewhat reluctantly, gone back home after tearing apart the rebel forces besieging Twinharbor - a battle which had been every bit as bloody and horrific as she had feared. All of the rebellious settlements, meanwhile, had sent answers back - making it utterly clear just how thoroughly pleased they were to be part of her splendid Empire, and how happy they were that she had dealt with those 'few dissenting elements' who had made such a mess of their peace-loving, extremely-loyal colonies. A few of them even made a point of having already dealt with any 'lingering sedition' in their towns, just to make it clear that there was no need for her to send her military to 'help' - words that made her think of witch-hunts and street-justice, while shivers ran down her spine.

Regardless, the point was that the Southern Continent was stable... for now. And, for that matter, the rest of her Empire seemed to have gotten really quiet - letters and complaints from normally quarrelsome lords and governors had petered out, various wannabe 'Rebel groups' in the north had backed off on their usual campaigns of poorly-made pamphlets and crude posters, and any Imperial request for resources or assistance seemed to be met with immediate agreement everywhere. The story had spread, after all - and as far as everyone was concerned, they had finally seen the iron fist in her velvet glove. Already, the terrible events on the Southern Continent were being referred to by some as the 'First Imperial Subjugation'.

She'd expected the common people, who normally lauded her as a wise and compassionate ruler, to be disappointed. She'd expected half-concealed resentment and fear. But there wasn't any. If anything, the general citizenry seemed to have a new-found respect for her, nodding along and talking about how she'd certainly proven her willingness to "Do what is necessary", even if it was an unpleasant business. The fact that it had all happened in the Southern Colonies probably helped, but even so! Thousands of people, most of them guilty of nothing more than letting themselves get riled up by a firebrand speaker, were dead - and most of them had no graves, having been devoured to the bone by hordes of carnivorous reptiles! And she was getting _accolades_for that?

The thing she'd feared most of all was the reaction of 'her' church. What would they make of it? They'd always preached a gospel of 'universal love' - would seeing their 'goddess' with bloodstained hands shatter their faith? Or worse, would they see this as a 'sign from the heavens', and begin preaching a new, more bloodthirsty truth? But once again, her fears had proven unfounded. The Church had simply rifled back through their holy script - the 'Book of the Beastmaker' - and referenced a few quotations about her earlier battles, as if there was no difference between the way she'd once fought desperately for her own survival and the casual slaughter of thousands in her name. "The Beastmaker is kind and merciful and loves all, but if you fuck with her she will ruin your shit" was the general gist of their sermons over the past couple of weeks. And rather than shift the tone of their beliefs, it only seemed to have made them even more ardent in their quest to 'spread the Love' - after all, what better way to ensure that such unfortunate events would not repeat themselves? Clearly, those foolish, rebellious souls in the South simply hadn't felt the Love of the Beastmaker, or else they wouldn't have made such poor decisions...

This, of course, had only contributed to the current glut of cross-oceanic shipping. More ships than ever were crossing the Great Current, keeping the Merfolk busy (and filling their coffers) - and while quite a few of them carried pilgrims, eager to spread the good word (and get a good lay) throughout both the formerly-rebellious provinces and the newly-discovered tribes of the southern jungles, others carried a different payload. Scholars and sages, weighed down by crates of books and reams of paper, were flocking to those selfsame jungles, eager to learn more of the ancient, mysterious tribes that had, apparently, predated the very creation of mankind. Those who were blessed with suitably-wealthy patrons often carried grand gifts for their reptilian hosts as well, hoping to win enough favor to earn a meeting with the enigmatic Heart of the Mountain.

Other ships, meanwhile, carried merchants. The Southern Continent had initially been dismissed by them as 'not worth the effort' - there was little there worth buying, few wealthy enough to be worth selling to, and too many risks along the way. This, though, had changed. The Centaurs now roamed the Southern Plains, using their great mobility and powerful bows to turn the once-fearsome monsters who once rampaged unchecked there into a manageable problem. They, like the Merfolk, were now drawing significant profits by acting as escorts and guides for those who were heading further south - as well as providing contacts and introductions among the friendly Sharptooth Tribes, whom they'd hit it off with remarkably well even before they had the 'pleasure' of working together to put down the rebellion. Word was that the Centaur capital of Parapolis was growing in leaps and bounds now, thanks to their easy access to both freshly-harvested jungle-woods and funds.

While quite a bit of trade was taking place in this newly-minted capital, however, the real holy grail of the merchants was the Sirrush tribes - both the Sharptooth, who were, after all, imperial subjects in their own right, and the Muhuru-Ngoubou who were merely allies and treaty-bound, but clearly friendly - a young Three-Horn named Prorsus had recently ascended to the rank of Chief, replacing his adoptive father, Maastrich, who was 'retiring for reasons of poor health', and the rumors filtering in from there on the backs of returning merchants were that he intended to file for full membership in the Empire, as soon as his people had grown more accustomed to the idea. The flood of welcome trade-goods from the north was probably helping with that.

And quite the bounty those merchants carried home! Opals, previously exceedingly rare and found only in a small portion of the Beastkin Territories and the southernmost tip of the Grass Sea, were fairly common in those jungles, and the natives had long collected them for primitive decorations. Now, they were being sold in large numbers and carted back north, where their price was rapidly dropping - making a lot of adventurous merchants quite wealthy in the process. The Sharptooth Tribes, meanwhile, had proven to be fast learners once introduced to the concept of 'Trade' (which, fortunately, their sacred Mountain had done before the first eager merchants turned up at their doorstep), and were making money hand over claw, collecting Opals from surface deposits and selling mineral-rights in the less-holy regions of their mountainous territories - along with providing priceless and fearsome protection for anyone aiming to explore the jungles. Other merchants, less blinded by the immediate profits that could be made on the Opal-trade before the prices stabilized, were buying up the potent, herbal medicines and drugs that the Sharptooth Tribes had drawn from the jungle's medicine-locker for millennia, and finding eager markets for them back home. And not just because of the eternal appeal of 'exotic, foreign secrets' - for starters, the heart-shaped herb that the Sharptooth used for birth-control was just as effective on humans, and far more certain (and easier on the body) than the methods commonly used in the North.

All of this, at least, could warm her heart, driving away the chill of the disastrous rebellion. The Sharptooth Tribe, who had maintained a cast-iron population-control for millenia, were now finally growing - their bellies filled by imported meat, courtesy of the large herds now spreading across the Southern Plains, guarded by watchful Centaur herdsmen. Meanwhile, the ancient rift between them and their herbivorous cousins, the Muhuru-Ngoubou, was starting to heal - with such a surplus of food streaming into their villages, and more measures in the works to ensure that they would not soon go hungry, they no longer had a compelling reason to prey on their neighbors. Which, obviously, did a lot to improve relations. The latest word was that a tentative cooperative venture was in the work - Muhuru-Ngoubou-run farms would begin producing valuable herbs for trading, under the direction of Sharptooth herbalists.

A slight smile on her lips, she put the last of her correspondence aside and glanced towards the corner of her desk. The figurines, there, were at rest - having apparently exhausted themselves with their sexual games. They looked perfectly normal, now - motionless in their original poses, on top of their little, square bases. But she could still feel them - like a faint, soundless heartbeat. They were still alive - returning to their original form was merely their resting-position. If she called, they would leap off their bases again, ready to do whatever they could for her, with all the limited capacity of a handful of palm-sized figurines. She wondered how long they would rest for, if she left them like that. One more experiment to run, she supposed.

With a sigh, she picked up some other, less optimistic paperwork. It was all well and good that things were looking up down south, but she _still_needed to solve the communication-issue, long-term, and that meant getting her hands on those Elven Ansibles. She hadn't heard back from them, despite requesting a progress-report - only a stiffly-formal promise that the first set of Ansibles would be delivered when ready. It seemed they were still rather upset that Thielwen had spilled the beans before they were completely ready. Either way, those Ansibles came with a price, and that meant that she had a promise to keep. Two Divine Pets had been tracked down and convinced to offer their assistance. Two more remained at large, their location a mystery.

Well, everything_about the Hydra was a mystery, of course. She had an idea about where she might learn some of it, obviously - but she was loath to go back to that particular well unless she had to. Her last visit to Aterxeus' cave had been... pleasant enough, she supposed, but it ended on a sour note. And besides, however generous that black dragon had been with her so far, she wasn't so sure that he'd be willing to share secrets so intimately tied to dragonkind's enigmatic creator, the nameless God of Mystery. And ultimately, she thought it likely that the _other remaining pet was more likely to be the missing piece of the puzzle - after all, the Golden Ram, Theokrios, was the pet of humanity's own Goddess of Fertility, Mother Belah... and that particular purview seemed very close indeed to what she needed.

The Unicorn, after all, could probably remove the Divine Spark from an Elf - and Quetzalcoatl could keep him alive through the process. All that was needed was someone who could stabilize the subject's now-mortal life, giving him a normal, sustainable lifespan and fertility-rate. Those tales and legends of Theokrios that she'd found spoke of a great, golden ram whose every hoof-print sprouted tall stalks of wheat, and who could make a sterile woman pregnant with sextuplets with a single, braying cry. Surely, he could handle the last part of the spell... if she could find him.

It wasn't proving easy, despite the vast resources available to her these days. The Golden Ram was an elusive mark, and many of the tales about him spoke of men or women going on grand quests across the breadth of the world to find him. And while the Unicorn's location had been easily narrowed down to the Beastkin Territories, where his Master's people dwelt, humanity was scattered across most of the continent and beyond - taking the stories of their own creator's pet with them. Worse, the tales and myths tended to be painfully vague and filled with broad generalities like "Crossing the vast plains" or "traveling to the mountains"... which plains, crossed in what direction, to climb what mountains? Somehow, the storytellers always seemed to leave that out.

A sharp tap on her enchanted chamber-door heralded the arrival of Cybra, who proved to be in an uncharacteristically elated mood. She rather hoped that its elation wasn't related to the recent execution of a pair of low-level bureaucrats it had personally nailed down as being responsible for 'misfiling' various petitions for independence from the Southern Colonies. The men had, as it turned out, been taking payoffs from a number of wealthy merchant families, who had worried that their interests in both the colonies and the city-states who spawned them would suffer if the famously-kind and merciful Beastmaker received those petitions and started making sweeping changes to the taxation of the colonies... as, indeed, she had. Certainly, those bureaucrats had deserved their fate - their foolishness and greed had led directly to the terrible bloodbath of the Twinharbor Siege - but she still didn't care for the idea of something that had once been part of her mind being that pleased to see someone hang.

As it turned out, however, his mood had a far more pleasant source. "Griffon Express Mail from Mosvaruch. They've got a confirmed sighting of the Golden Ram, and recently." His voice was cheery, and as usual, he had obviously been reading her mail before delivering it. Snapping up the envelope he carried lodged in his fleece, she quickly read through it herself. It had clearly been written just as hastily as it had been sent - by someone who feared that the value of the information might drop if it spent too long in transit. Apparently, one of the Mosvaruch Merchant Guild's caravans had spotted a 'great ram, gleaming like gold against the clouds' in... southern Laswell? Really?

She looked down on the Laswell-region from the back of her Great Winged Beast, feeling equal parts doubtful and weirdly disappointed. It really didn't seem like the place where you'd expect to find... well, _anything_important - or interesting, for that matter - nevermind a legendary, immortal beast like Theokrios! But the sighting had been solid - a whole caravan, guards and merchants alike, had seen it. More confirmation had already been acquired - a few of the local villages she'd landed in, once they'd gotten over their shock and surprise at her sudden appearance, had admitted to there being occasional sightings up in the mountains - usually from lone shepherds or hunters, though, who hadn't been taken terribly seriously up to that point. They all seemed rather disbelieving about the idea that the legendary Golden Ram might be hiding in their peaceful little region, too - surely, it was just the daydreaming of lonely travelers, right?

Laswell. A fertile, if rather rainy region sandwiched between the lower parts of the Great Bay to the west, and a minor mountain-range to the east. The mountains were the sort that could barely be said to be worth the name - indeed, uncharitable individuals were known to refer to them as "Somewhat-tall hills" instead. None were high enough to sport snow-covered peaks, and they tended to be so gently-sloped that dirt and vegetation had covered them all but completely, leaving no dramatic crags or rocky outcroppings. Neither the Griffons nor the Dragons had any interest in settling in such unassuming peaks, and no prospector had found anything worth mining in them, save a few halfway-decent coal-deposits. The best that could be said of those mountains is that they had, at least, provided a decent wall between the region and the Grass Sea further to the east - thus protecting them from the Centaur Marauders who had, until fairly recently, threatened the lands further north.

And so, Laswell had just... been there, peaceful, unassuming and uninteresting, for untold centuries. The locals were known to be quiet, law-abiding and hard-working, taking full advantage of their fertile land and the rich, surrounding seas to provide simple, solid livelihoods for all. A slight surplus of food - plus the aforementioned coal - rendered the region moderately, but not spectacularly, prosperous. All in all, it was the kind of place that a hero in a tale would _start_from, breaking away from his simple, boring life as a farmhand, fisherman or shepherd to engage in great and remarkable adventures somewhere more interesting.

Certainly, compared to an ancient sacrificial altar on a cape at the edge of the Great Bay, an enchanted cavern beneath the mystical city of Xangri-Du, or even a remote glade in the fir-covered mountains of the northern Beastkin Territories, this seemed like a dreadfully prosaic place to find one of the ancient, magical and tremendously powerful 'pets' of the long-gone Gods. Perhaps, she thought as she soared over those diminutive wannabe-mountains, that was exactly why Theokrios was here? Hiding in the last place anyone would think to look, to avoid all the adventure-seekers who were likely to hunt it for its famous, golden fleece - or its power over fertility... but if that was the idea, he seemed to be remarkably careless about getting spotted!

Well, maybe not that_careless, on reflection. Appearing on top of a hill overlooking a main trade-road, to be spotted by an entire caravan, _that was the bit that seemed unusual. Beyond that, the sightings seemed few and far between, with no pattern that could nail him down conclusively. Laswell was a relatively small region of her empire, by most standards, but combing the whole place would still be a colossal task. She'd had handfuls of flying scouts doing sweeps over the mountains - which was where the Golden Ram mostly seemed to get spotted - and all she had learned so far was that however unassuming those mountains were, they had no shortage of hiding-spots.

There were plenty of natural caves, usually not terribly deep or impressive, but still plenty big enough to hide a giant, golden ram from an overhead sweep. Lots of old, disused mineshafts, too, from various coal-mining operations that had run briefly before the veins proved too thin, and then shut down again. If she couldn't get some more solid directions, she'd be there all month! Maybe she should bring K'teshi and Orichaniel down from the Palace to help? They could hop-skip between villages and run aerial surveys just as well as she could, and many hands made light work... though, admittedly, the old proverb didn't mention anything about talons or claws!

But no, pulling them along on what could still easily turn out to a wild goose chase would be indefensible. K'teshi was as busy as ever, and Ori was little better off. The Flower-Dragon colony on the recently-christened Rafflesia Island was still under construction, as were the relations between said Flower-Dragons and the rest of the world. Not all of the ships sailing south, filled with merchants, scholars and pilgrims, were going all the way to the Southern Continent - many were just as eager to make the acquaintance of the mysterious, clearly-friendly Flower-Dragons. Some of the more adventurous souls even wanted to visit their original home, the floating island in the middle of the Great Current - and any trip there was an extremely chancy proposition without Ori along as a guide.

No, she had plenty of flying constructs, including her Great Winged Beast. If air-power could solve this problem, she had it covered. But it rather seemed like it wouldn't. What she needed were more local sightings, more accounts - if the Golden Ram was really here, there HAD to be more than she'd heard so far. It wasn't such an exciting place that sightings of a legendary, mythical beast would just disappear into the background-noise. Honestly, it seemed more like the kind of place where someone's cow giving birth to a three-legged calf was the talk of the town for years afterwards.

So why was nobody talking to her? ...hrm. Well, a lot of the Village Aldermen and Mayors she'd wound up speaking to had seemed... cagey. Embarrassed, maybe. Perhaps they were afraid that such 'fairy-tale' stories as appearances of the Golden Ram would be taken for flights of fancy, or worse, putting on airs! The Laswell-folk were famous for being unimaginative and down-to-earth, after all - a reputation many of them seemed strangely pleased with. And her own appearance - descending from the heavens on the wings of an enormous beast - was probably just a bit... intimidating. She'd certainly noticed a lot of folks dashing for cover, hiding in buildings - if only to peer out of their windows at the spectacle she made - when she prepared to land in the various villages.

Well, she decided - her aerial scouts could continue the grid-based search just fine without her. Even without any direct control from her, their basic, animalistic minds were plenty capable of carrying out an order as simple as "Contact me if you spot a huge, golden beast." There certainly weren't many things that could be mistaken for the Golden Ram! Well, as long as she left her own, signature Golden Steed at home, anyway. So, while they kept trying to spot it with a systematic search, she might as well try a different tack instead of just hanging around up in the thin, cold air to keep them company!

She landed, unseen, outside one of the smaller villages. It wasn't as difficult as all that - the terrain was hilly, especially this close to the mountains, and the cloud-cover was both dense and low. The region was known for both frequent and infamously-thick fog, too, and it certainly wouldn't take much more for the clouds to turn into just that! Either way, it ensured that the only witnesses to her landing were a herd of bored-looking sheep occupying a good-sized paddock. Their ram spent some time trying to stare down the big, white bird who had landed near his turf, but other than that, she went unobserved.

Though she'd packed in a hurry, she had brought several changes of clothing for the trip. Until now, she'd been wearing her 'fancy' traveling-clothes - the same that had carried her to the jungles of the Southern Continent and back. (They'd proven to be remarkably stain-resistant - you really couldn't tell that they'd been through such an adventure with her.) While nowhere near as elaborate as the dresses she wore on official occasions, they nonetheless gave her an air of understated majesty - just by being clearly made from expensive fabrics and stitched by a master's hand, they made it obvious that whoever wore them wasn't just anybody!

Now, though, she hurried changed to a different set. Ordinary, shabby, slightly-worn but reasonably sturdy traveling-clothes - shirt and hose, with a tough, thick cloak that could keep rain and wind at bay. They were relics from her early days, comfortable and well-worn, that she'd never had the heart to rid herself of - even if the shirt now seemed a bit tighter over the chest, and the trousers a bit ill-fitting around the hips. Certainly, in such clothes, none would mistake her for an Empress, never mind a Goddess - without all the pomp and circumstance, she was, after all, just a fairly ordinary-looking, brown-haired girl in her early twenties. Not a fact she exactly_relished_, but that was no reason not to take advantage of it...

To complement it, she grabbed a leather satchel and threw some odds and ends into it, just to make it suitably heavy and jangly. The toolbag of a simple, traveling prospector, recently graduated from the Vocational Academy in Mosvaruch - employed by the Mosvaruch Miner's Guild, and on the search for fresh coal-veins! A perfectly believable cover-story - she'd even spent enough time in dreary meetings about mineral-rights (courtesy of the Griffons, who claimed so many mineral-rich mountains for their territories) that she could likely manage to mouth the right lines about strata, purity and so on, so long as no-one pressed her too much.

Sure enough, people proved to be more chatty around an unassuming, lonesome traveler, just stopping into the local tavern for a pint and a bit of warmth from the fireplace, than they were around a Goddess descending from the skies. Not that she got any immediate bites - folks seemed friendly enough at first, baring a few farmers who worried that a newly-discovered coal-vein might ruin hillsides they were currently using for grazing. Some were momentarily surprised by a young woman claiming to be a prospector - but inevitably, their suspicions could be dispelled by casually mentioning that while the guild-run Vocational Schools in the big cities had used to be rather cagey about accepting female students, they had changed their tune a few years back.

While effective as a cover, though, this tack brought its own challenges - namely, avoiding blushing noticeably when more devout locals responded to this subtle allusion with a nod and a mumbled "Praise be to the Empress, Hallowed and Gloried..." Almost worse was trying to restrain her smile when barmaids or other nearby women launched into loud praise of the way their new Empress had opened doors for ladies everywhere. "Gone are the days where a woman's choice in life was between being a housewife or a whore!" One stout matron commented, depositing large fistfuls of beer-mugs on a nearby table. "Oh yeah?" One of the patrons snickered. "I seem to recall you ruling this place with an iron fist well before our Glorious Empress ascended to the throne and started making sweeping proclamations about women's rights."

"Oh, she's just an impatient sort..." another man snorted. "Couldn't wait for a Divine Empress to descend from the Heavens and liberate her, so she just went ahead and did it herself." He received a swat on the back of his head in passing for his troubles, and a predictable reply. "Impatient, am I? Well, in that case, you shouldn't be surprised when I remind you that you haven't paid your tab in a while! In fact, I might soon get 'impatient' and cut you off!" Joking and jostling like this was common in the village taverns, and often set off gales of laughter and lifted cups across the room. Gossip flowed as freely as the weak, foamy ale. But the moment she brought up mention of a 'golden ram', or anything of that stripe, everything seemed to get a lot more quiet, with some mumbling about 'silly fairytales' and others just flat-out clamming up to bury themselves in their mugs.

She went through a number of villages and taverns like that, too stubborn to give up her clever plan just because she wasn't having immediate success. If nothing else, she reassured herself, it was quite useful to get a glimpse of her Empire from the perspective of the common folk. A look at that simple life she'd left behind, the fashions and mores that reigned beyond the marble halls of her Palace. And certainly, you couldn't get much simpler than Laswell, particularly up in the hills where the risks and dangers of the sea-fishing were left behind in favor of ever-reliable sheep-farming. Flocks of braying sheep were everywhere, it seemed, to the point where their keepers seemed to have gained an amusingly sheepish look from the long relation - particularly the older men, with their curly white hair and beards.

Curly hair, indeed, seemed prevalent at every age, and was often worn rather long even by men - many of whom wore colorful bandannas to keep their curly mops under control. Otherwise, everyone seemed dressed in simple, woolen homespun, often undyed and ill-fitting, as if passed down from older siblings. Compared to this, even her shabby old travel-clothes seemed somewhat fancy! But, she reminded herself, she wasn't here to analyze the local fashion. If she was to gain any fringe-benefits from this journey, it would be by listening to the common grumblings that never reached Imperial ears, spotting potential troubles and issues before they got out of hand and suchlike.

For instance, she noted, a lot of the men she saw seemed to have trouble walking, hobbling along with a slightly odd gait and often wearing large, loose trousers. Could it be some kind of common birth-defect? The result of frequent inbreeding? In such remote, isolated settlements, that was certainly a possibility - it reminded her rather forcibly of Thielwen's recent reflection about mankind's vulnerability to such issues. On the other hand, the explanation could be more mundane - sheep-farming was a very common occupation in the Laswell hills, and even a perfectly normal-sized, non-golden ram could certainly cause some damage with a running charge. Cracked hips and broken legs, grown back together improperly without the benefit of a proper healer... an equally-possible explanation, especially since she wasn't seeing any women hobbling around in the same way.

She tried asking a particularly friendly-seeming Innkeeper - a red-cheeked woman with a booming laugh - about it, during her usual stop-over in a small, local tavern and inn. The stream of jolly gossip she'd been putting out died down quickly when Sayn raised the subject - but when she hesitantly asked if maybe it was just an occupational hazard for shepherds, the laugh returned, and she quickly nodded. "Oh yes - the rams around here are dreadfully aggressive! Lots of folks get bowled over by 'em. Hard on the legs, and no mistake!" Sayn wasn't entirely convinced - the initial silence seemed to suggest a local shame, no business of an 'outsider'...

Well, either way, she'd have to talk to some folks when she got back to the Palace. Maybe an awareness-campaign about the dangers of inbreeding, in the more rural areas - encouraging young folks to seek marriage in neighboring villages instead of their own, and such. Or subsidies for healers willing to move to rural areas - she was already pouring a lot of money into the construction and running of Healer's Colleges in city-states across the continent, and there was no reason why that should only benefit the larger population-centers. For now, though, she needed to focus on her actual purpose - and at last, she'd gotten a bite.

Not from a local, mind - but from a solitary, traveling merchant. As soon as she mentioned the Golden Ram, he immediately launched into a clearly well-worn story about how, while visiting a village further up in the mountains, he had left his room in the dark of the night to go relieve himself, and spotted an immense, golden ram, bounding down the hillside behind the inn! Of course, no-one had believed him - they'd just insisted that it had to have been a perfectly ordinary ram, perhaps dyed by the light of the full moon. But, he explained, one finger resting conspiratorially against his nose, while it _had_been during a full moon, it had been cloudy that night - and this being Laswell, that much seemed quite believeable. And the moon could hardly dye a sheep golden through a solid cloud-cover, could it? Well, the other tavern-patrons, overhearing the story from neighboring tables, certainly didn't seem to have any trouble believing so. "A single gap in the clouds, and suddenly he's seeing mythical creatures..." one mumbled, rolling his eyes. A young woman sitting with him giggled, speaking just loud enough to make the young merchant blush with embarrassment. "Well, you know how it is... the full moon does funny things to folks." Her companions laughed rather uproariously at that - trying too hard to impress a pretty girl, perhaps.

The sighting, if it was even real, was several months old - but, it was the only clue she had, and she might as well try one village as another - so her next stop, she decided, would be that mountain village the traveling merchant had mentioned. Even as she approached it, however, she sensed that something was... off. It was a small village, indeed, high up in the mountains, home to some good-sized flocks of hardy mountain-sheep, and nothing else of note. So why were there so many travelers on the roads, heading there along steep mountain paths? She had to look long and hard to find a suitably secluded spot to land and made her own way towards the edge of the village.

The other travelers on the road didn't look like merchants, either - more like local folks, including many who moved with that odd, but by-now familiar, gait. She tried her best to blend in, and largely succeeded - at least, nobody seemed to look askance at her. Once inside the village, she watched carefully to see what other travelers would do; some, particularly the older of the travelers, went to greet specific locals that were, it seemed, acquaintances of theirs. Younger visitors, meanwhile, seemed to head towards the crowded local tavern, where mugs of foamy ale were flying over the counter at a dizzying pace, and many patrons drank outside rather than endure the overheated and -crowded space inside. Whatever was going on, she thought, it had to have been planned well in advance - the tavern would've had to lay in extra stocks, or else such a crowd would have cleared them out within the hour.

Most of the new arrivals, and particularly those who were neither among the youngest nor the oldest, headed directly towards a large barn at the back of the village, its windows blazing with light. It was otherwise unmarked, and the door kept closed and guarded by an old but sturdy-seeming man. Everyone who entered stopped to talk to him first. Doing her best to act as if she was heading towards the tavern, she carefully strayed close enough to eavesdrop as a middle-aged couple approached the barn door, and paused before its guardian.

"What brings you here?" He asked curtly. "We're here to see a man about a sheep." The answer came glibly, and the guard nodded. The door was pushed open a crack, just enough for the two to slip inside, and the sound of many voices filtered out before it shut again. Sign and countersign... fairly elaborate security, for a bunch of shepherds and farmers. Still would've made the spymasters and weekend conspirators back at the Palace shake their heads with disappointment, though. Putting on her best face, she stepped up to the door herself, and answered the question the same way.

The guard let a lecherous look run up her curves - accentuated as they were by her somewhat ill-fitting clothes. "Oh, I'm sure he'll want to see you, too..." he drawled, even as he pushed open the door for her. Hopefully, the nervous smile she flashed him was an appropriate enough reaction for some random farm-girl visiting the village for... some kind of festival, apparently? The insides of the barn was hot and crowded, and seemed likely to get even more so if the people currently spending time at the tavern and chatting with local friends joined in later. Long tables stood against the walls, loaded with simple, solid local food. On a raised dais, a small orchestra was sawing away at primitive instruments, fiddle and reed-pipes much in appearance. Everyone was chatting excitedly, and she saw quite a few couples kissing or moving quietly against each other in the corners - not all of them the youngsters she'd have expected to put on such public displays of affection.

Grabbing a bite at the food-tables, she sharpened her ears and tried to pick up everything she could from the din of the surrounding conversations. A lot of it seemed to just be generic catching up - talk of the impending harvest, of how the fishing had been - suggesting that at least some of the guests had come all the way from the seaside villages further west or south - along with mention of recently-opened coal-mines or prospects of same. But here and there, she heard intriguing snippets - mentions of 'The Great Ram', and an impending meeting with same. Also some mentions of having 'long awaited' the full moon - making her glance out the window to confirm that, sure enough, the skies were as cloudy as they tended to be in these mountains... but presumably, there was a full moon hiding somewhere behind them! Just like in the merchant's story...

There really were a lot of the men who walked oddly here, she noted - a lot more than she'd seen in any of the villages. Perhaps because of the elated mood, though, they didn't seem to hobble so much as skip around, an odd spring in their steps... it was all very strange. What exactly was she doing here, anyway? She really had no indication that this was anything other than some kind of reasonably-exclusive village festival, let alone that any of this had any connection to her search for Theokrios. On the other hand, she thought with a shrug, the food was good - and free! The kind of basic, solid peasant fare that she sometimes missed in the Palace. Mutton was much in appearance, of course, but there was also quite a bit of dark, hard-crusted peasant bread, and thick, freshly-made butter...

A cheer went up through the barn, drawing her attention away from the food. A number of burly young men were carrying heavy kegs inside, now, while women carrying mountains of battered tin mugs followed close behind. The kegs were set up in the corners and by the food-tables, tapped, and swiftly surrounded - even as the crowds grew denser yet. The tavern-guests, it seemed, were joining the festivities, lured by the prospect of free beer. The orchestra was picking up wind, playing a slow, yet energetic ditty that seemed heavy with barely-restrained passion. At this point, it seemed likely that she couldn't get out even if she wanted to - the press of people was getting severe, and nobody else seemed inclined to go anywhere. Trying to leave would see her swiftly singled out, and would no doubt lead to an awkward, embarrassing scene at the very least.

So she went with the flow. Ate more roast mutton on buttered bread, joined the crowds around the barrels and managed to grab a mug of not-great-but-not-terrible beer, and enjoyed the sensation of being just another, anonymous face in the crowd, rather than being singled out for adoration, worship, and the occasional assassination-attempt. The beer and the addition of more youngsters, meanwhile, had seemingly gotten the party properly started. There was a lot more 'dancing' going on, now - but it wasn't the kind of wholesome folk-dances that usually went down at a peasants' ball. It was close, with lots of physical contact and hip-gyrations, often including or culminating in some fairly heated kisses.

Her initial assumption - that it was a lot of young couples showing their affection in a surprisingly daring way - was swiftly dashed, however. The dance-partners shifted frequently, and not all of them were all that young. The men with the odd gait and the baggy trousers seemed to be particularly popular dance-partners, making her wonder if the 'dance' - which did, after all, involve a lot more swaying-in-place and a lot less fancy footwork than most she knew of - had grown from that odd, local condition. It looked... interesting, regardless. She'd never really had a chance to dance, beyond a few dreadfully boring and formal balls... and this certainly didn't seem like it required the kind of murderously tedious lessons she'd needed to take for those.

She did not so much enter the crowded dance-floor, as stop resisting the general press of bodies and allow herself to be pulled there. Within minutes, she found herself moving against a handsome young man with a bright-red bandanna tied around his long, black curls, dangerously close to his chest. Said chest was heavily hairy, peeking out from a shirt left mostly open - a fair move considering the growing heat - and she found herself blushing as his strong, masculine scent of fresh sweat and muskiness reached her nostrils.

He was obviously and unsurprisingly much more skilled at the 'dance' than her, but she managed to keep up without much trouble - it was, after all, mostly just a matter of twisting your body to the breathless tune of the reed-pipes and the singing fiddle, gyrating your hips to keep them glued to his. She could feel something press against her groin as she did - something thick and hot and very, very large, bringing a renewed blush to her face. Really, if that was what it felt like, the guy had to be almost literally hung like a horse - it seemed more likely that he had stuffed a mutton salami down his trousers. Actually, with the way the dance worked, she could easily imagine that being part of the game - filling those loose-hanging trousers with suitably-large objects for a naughty laugh.

She felt rather breathless as the dance neared its conclusion - and not just because the exertion, which was greater than she would have expected from such a relatively stationary dance. He really was rather handsome, she thought, with a dark stubble giving his prominent chin a suitable, masculine contour, and deep, piercing, dark-brown eyes. A few years older than her, if she was any judge. She couldn't help but be reminded of the man who'd been her first - though he had been softer, less hairy, and closer to her own age. Did he still regale his friends with stories of the day where he'd been spirited away to the Beastmaker's bed for a night of pleasure? Probably not - after all, the ending to that story was more likely to win laughter and scorn than admiration. Discarded and returned to his normal, boring existence after a single night... poor chap. And it wasn't as if he'd ever even had a chance to realize that he was the one who had taken her virginity.

The dance reached its final crescendo, and she didn't resist as her dance-partner slipped his hand behind her neck and pulled her into an intense kiss. She was a bit surprised, on one level, when it didn't stop at locking lips - his tongue, warm and wet and tasting of beer, pushed into her mouth with practiced ease. On another level, though, she was rather accustomed to sharing such intense displays of erotic affection with the members of her Harem - so she instinctively returned the favor, letting her tongue wrestle with his and slide along it to explore his mouth in turn.

A string of gleaming drool connected their lips for a split second after the kiss ended, and he grinned down at her, eyes sparkling. "I like you... so pretty, and a great kisser to boot... maybe I'll look you up later, when the party's really gotten started." His voice was smooth, and deeper than she'd expected from a man his age. Before she had a chance to reply, however, the next dance got started, and they were both whirled away by a new partner. It took two more dances before she managed to extract herself from the dance-floor - each putting her up against a strong, masculine body and culminating in a kiss that left her breathless. Her dance-partners hadn't all been as young as the first one, though - in fact, the third had been old enough to be her father, most likely. Not that this had stopped him from possessing a body hard with well-toned muscles, or a near-overpowering scent of masculine virility. And besides, her One True Love was a centuries-old Kirin, so she was hardly one to complain about age-differences, she thought as she delicately sucked on his questing tongue.

She felt a bit shaky as she finally made it away from the press of gyrating bodies, and quickly pushed her way through the milling crowds to the beer-kegs, where another mug steadied her nerves and a third reassured her that she was just having a bit of fun, joining a simple village festival. What little talk she'd heard of a 'Great Ram' was probably just references to whatever excuse the locals used to throw this party - a celebration of the virile rams who kept their flocks of sheep well-stocked with lambs, presumably. Well, no one could blame her for taking a night off - tomorrow, when everyone was nice and hung over and had their guards down, she'd try trolling for sightings of her mark, the Golden Ram. For now, it seemed a splendid idea to soak up some of the beer she'd just downed with another slice of dark peasant bread and maybe some more of that honey-glazed, slow-roasted mutton...

She was halfway through her second slice of that delicious mutton when the great barn doors at the front of the building were suddenly thrown wide open. The old man who had, apparently, been standing guard out there all this time, strode in and declared - in a voice that cut through the din of voices and the whine of the orchestra's fiddles "The moon stands above the mountains. It is time!" Silence fell immediately, and Sayn had to restrain a giggle that would have been clearly audible in this sudden stillness. How did he know where the moon was? The clouds had been thick overhead last time she looked out the window, and no wonder - this place was famous for seeing the sun maybe once a year.

Nobody else seemed to be laughing, however - instead, they all started pressing towards the entrance, collecting cloaks and jackets from the pile near the door as they filtered out into the night. She followed suit, increasingly curious, and collected her own travel-cloak as well. Or possibly someone else's, there were a lot of similarly-styled cloaks there, and nobody seemed too bothered about getting exactly the right one. Outside, she glanced up and saw, to her surprise, that the sky was crispy-clear - the stars twinkled as bright points of light, and a great, golden moon hung heavy and full above the peaks behind the barn, just as the man had said.

It was still fairly dark, especially after just stepping out of the brightly-lit barn - but not for long. A number of local folks, particularly elderly ones, were standing by the side of the road with barrels of torches, handing them out randomly to those who passed by, so that they could be lit from a nearby bonfire. Sayn didn't get one, but she still had no trouble seeing where she put her feet as she allowed herself to be pulled along by the growing procession. They were heading up a well-worn path into the mountains proper, walking four abreast, silently holding their torches aloof. There was not a touch of wind, and the mountain air seemed refreshingly springlike for all that it was late summer - a pleasant bit of coolness after the pressure-cooker of the crowded barn.

Up and up they went, and around her, some of the other guests had started mumbling under their breath... she could catch only snatches of words, but it was enough to make her heartbeat quicken and the fog of too many mugs of beer begin to recede. "...Hallowed be the Great Ram..." "...Golden be his Fleece, Golden be our Fields..." "...Many be his Fold, Many be our Flocks..." Perhaps her trip here hadn't been just a pleasant diversion after all. On the other hand, even if they were talking about the Golden Ram, it didn't necessarily follow that they knew where he was. Theokrios was an ancient symbol of fertility, after all - particularly the sort that concerned simple farmers and herdsmen. It wouldn't be that strange for an isolated farming-community to ritually celebrate him in the hopes of gaining fertile fields and fruitful flocks.

The winding mountain path ended at what seemed to be a natural cave-mouth, but as soon as the procession entered, it became clear that what lay beyond it had been expanded and adjusted by human hands. Even so, though, the cavern that they now filed into had clearly been big to begin with - the mass of people marching steadily into it failed to fill it entirely. It was obviously meant for ritualistic purposes, too - specifically, it seemed to be an ancient temple to Mother Beleh, the Goddess of Fertility who had created mankind. Worn-out friezes on the wall seemed to show swaying fields of wheat, pregnant women, and men with amusingly oversized dicks standing up from their groins like columns of solid virility. Braziers of beaten brass stood in every corner, cheerful flames dancing within them, spreading light and warmth in what would otherwise had been a dark and dank cavern.

The centerpiece was a broad, low altar, seemingly carved directly from the stone of the mountain, and overlooked by a grand statue of an enthroned Mother Beleh. Mankind's creator was depicted, as she usually was, as a larger-than-life woman with heavy, bounteous breasts and a belly swollen in permanent pregnancy, holding a sheaf of grain in one hand and a peach in the other. She had clearly been carved by inexpert but devoted hands, bringing across a sense of gentle wit in her facial features despite the relative crudeness thereof.

As the full length of the winding procession finished filing into the ritual-cavern, it became clear that its members weren't an even mix of the surrounding villages' population. Specifically, there were a lot of youngsters, a fair number of mature, middle-aged men and women, and a small but noticeable minority of older, long-bearded men - but no elderly women. This demographic division was made clearly visible by virtue of everyone beginning to strip, and not just the cloaks and jackets. Everyone was getting naked, clothes discarded in piles on the floor, and she found herself following suit almost automatically. Whether because everybody else was doing it too, or just because of her recently-discovered exhibitionistic tendencies, she didn't feel terribly embarrassed about it... in fact, it felt good to be rid of those scratchy clothes.

A pleasant warmth was spreading from the surrounding braziers, as they sent columns of smoke soaring towards the cave's ceiling where, presumably, hidden ducts would lead it out and away. The press of now-naked bodies added to the heat, making nudity feel like a perfectly natural response - anyone wearing heavy clothes under these circumstances would soon have been drenched with sweat. She felt a bit vague, though... like she'd been drinking a lot more than the three mugs of beer she had back in the barn. Or was it four? She couldn't quite remember.

Maybe it was this dullness that prevented her from revealing herself with a shocked reaction when she noticed that many of the now-naked people milling about the cave weren't exactly... human. Discarded bandannas revealed small, pointy horns rising from curly locks. Dropped pants revealed furry, goat-like legs and hooves, with tidy little tails behind and impossibly huge dicks swinging between them. The shape of those tremendous tools was mostly human, with just a touch of something unnatural about the narrowness of the head and the long shafts' slight sideways curve. But it really was the size that drew all attention - while not quite on par with the exaggerated features on the wall-frieze's decorations, they were certainly far larger than anything a normal man could hope to possess, right down to the fist-sized testes that dangled beneath.

She was no longer in any doubt that her dance-partner from back in the barn hadn't had anything in his pants he wasn't born with. Even soft, they would have been tremendous, and now they were rising proudly towards the cave's ceiling, wrist-thick and easily as long as a man's forearm. The largest of them - usually attached to older-looking men - would have nothing to be ashamed of next to a Centaur. (At least a younger one - nothing she saw could rival the larger Centaurs she'd made the acquaintance of, like old Parakemnon.) Actually, a closer look revealed that all of the older men she'd noticed were part of this goat-legged group, their now-naked bodies remarkably firm and well-toned underneath the occasionally saggy skin.

A powerful, musky scent seemed to be spreading from them, and mingling with the smoky smell of the braziers. It reminded Sayn rather forcefully of the sensation of being under a big, masculine body, feeling it weighing her down, feeling it push into her... she was panting, she realized, and her face felt burning-hot. So did the rest of her, now that she thought about it. The women standing close to the goat-legged men - and there were a lot of those, since they'd been clustering around them even before the clothes began to drop - were clearly even more heavily affected. Everywhere, women were rubbing their bodies against the goat-men, kissing them eagerly - and soon, falling to their knees before them to hungrily wrap their lips around as much of their huge cocks as they could manage.

The sense of growing, irresistible lust and desire was pervading the entire cave, though - even the men without animalistic features were gloriously erect, dicks rising throbbing with eagerness from their hairy loins. Those women who weren't clustered around the goat-men - either because they'd been a bit too later, or just because their sheer size was too intimidating - were reaching for those normal-sized but still virile shafts, now - tugging eagerly on them, or kneeling before them for a taste of their salty flavor. That included herself, she suddenly realized, glancing down to find her hand wrapped around a short but thick shaft, attached to a reasonably-fit, middle-aged man with an impressive mustache. It looked... remarkably tasty. She wanted to feel its smoothness against her lips, and right now, she couldn't remember why she oughtn't.

Moments later, her tongue was dancing around the head, tasting fresh sweat and bitter pre-cum. His wild-growing pubic-hair tickled her lips and nose as she bobbed her head over it. A hand was caressing her bum, sending an electric surge of desire through her groin. Eager to feel more, she pushed back against it, following its direction as she shifted her stance - lifting her ass, straightening her legs and bending at the hips until her back was parallel with the floor and her arms wrapped around the thick hips of the man in front of her to keep her steady.

The air around her was already thick with moans and groans, and she soon added her own, slightly-muffled ones to the din as she was penetrated from behind by an unseen lover. His dick wasn't terribly large, and he wasn't using it with any particularly great skill, but it felt so good inside her, so right. It needed to be there, needed to fill her womb with its load! Was this what it felt like for an animal to be in heat, she wondered dizzily. Then the first orgasm rolled through her, hot and heavy, aided by the spreading sensation of hot, slimy cum filling her pussy - and she stopped wondering about anything save where the next dick would be coming from.

She went through several lovers in rapid succession, rarely bothering to even glance at their faces, always just dashing for the nearest, unoccupied cock. They were always glistening with fresh juices, stained with spots of cum, and gloriously, deliciously hard. A languid, delightful warmth seemed to radiate out from her belly and womb, where load after load accumulated in short order. Then, she found herself facing a magnificent column that towered high above its peers, the sheen of recent use reaching barely halfway down its length. With an eager cry, she pounced on it, practically climbing the curly-haired legs that supported it in order to leverage her hungry snatch on top of it.

Strong, sweat-dewed arms assisted her, pulling her up against a hairy chest, large hands cupping her ass and lifting her up and into place. She moaned eagerly as she felt herself sink down on top of it, her labia stretching around its girth, and found herself suddenly face-to-face with someone vaguely familiar. The piercing, brown eyes were filled with lust and mirth as he whispered "Told you I'd find you later, cutie..." in her ear. The only answer she could think of was to let herself sink even deeper down, taking more of his huge cock into her body, and then meeting his lips in an intense, tongue-wrestling kiss that he eagerly returned.

With one of her legs resting precariously on the floor and the other wrapped possessively around his waist, he fucked her standing up, her well-used pussy taking him inside her nearly to the root. When he broke away from her lips, it was only to pepper kisses along her neck and face, bite gently on an earlobe, suck on her lower lip, and just generally making the already-tremendous heat inside her burn even hotter. Finally, he came - spraying her womb with a high-pressure jet of thick, fertile cum that seemed to entirely wash out the inferior seed that had gone before it. She'd cum herself several times by then, but that sensation sent a new one through her body, far more intense, shaking her lust-soaked mind.

"I want all of you inside me!" The words emerged from her mouth like a gasp, shaken loose by the powerful, orgasmic sensation. He chuckled, shifting his still-hard cock inside her. "Maybe in a few years, cutie... you've already taken more than I would've thought possible. Got a talent there, you do!" And indeed, it WAS only an inch or two that was still peeking out from between her labia, as his throbbing cockhead lay against her pleasantly-full womb. Still, she knew exactly where to put those last inches... "No... can do it now..." she mumbled, pushing herself off of him. He let her, one eyebrow quirked, and remained standing where he was as she spun her body around and pushed her ass back against him.

She had to pull his thick cock down into a more horizontal angle in order to steer it into her asshole, but once she reached that point, things went smoothly. Her sphincter had been twitching and throbbing with neglect for the duration of the orgy, ignored by her many partners. It eagerly stretched around the thoroughly-lubricated cock, and swallowed up inch after inch of it as she backed up - until finally, her buttocks were resting against the curly fur of her demihuman lover's groin. She heard him groan appreciatively, and then felt his powerful hands close around her waist. "Damn... I dunno where you're putting it all, but I can't ignore such a generous offer!"

His goat-like hips moved with more force and dexterity than humanly possible, as he began to skillfully fuck her ass. The thrusts were swift and crisp, the change of direction at the apex of each movement happening in a fragment of a split second, making the sense of motion and friction virtually constant. The huge shaft filled her pleasantly, without any sense of being stretched to a painful degree - a sensation that went all the way from her twitching sphincter to the depth of her ass. Despite the way her now-empty pussy was gaping and twitching, she moaned eagerly and pushed back against the thrusts, grabbing his wrists to steady herself as the first anal orgasm began to rise in her.

The jostling, the mind-blowing pleasure, and her spread-legged pose all conspired, at that point, to make her loose control of her beer-filled bladder. She couldn't work up the presence of mind to even feel embarrassed as the hissing, steaming stream hit the stone floor, and as her eyes disinterestedly followed the resulting, golden-yellow stream, she realized two things. Firstly, she was far from the only one who had arrived with a bellyful of cheap beer, nor the first to find that it had made its way swiftly through her. A cursory glance turned up at least two other women in the exact same situation as her - shamelessly pissing themselves while being fucked, sometimes doing so all over their partner - and no-one seemed bothered at all about it. Here and there, men would stop briefly in their activities to relieve themselves on the floor, only to then jump right back in with barely a moment taken to shake themselves off. The second thing, fortunately, was that the cavern's floor slanted away from the altar and towards the walls - leading towards a number of drainage-holes at both sides of it. The piss and various other bodily fluids that fell on the smooth, clean floor simply flowed past the many bare feet and hooves to disappear there - perhaps falling into some underground steam that served as a natural sewer for the temple.

Briefly fascinated by this thoughtful design - and perversely enjoying the sensation of relieving herself while getting ass-fucked - she barely noticed the shorter, elderly goat-man who was now standing in front of her, an eager, boyish grin on his white-bearded face. The cock rising from his curly-haired loins looked as fit as any teenager's, though, and his arms were still strong as he pushed and lifted Sayn back until she was resting against a hairy chest, a plundering cock still pounding steadily into her ass, now at an upwards angle. She certainly noticed when, having waited for the last dribble of pee to leave her urethra, he stepped forwards - catching her between the two of them, his shaft disappearing into her cum-drooling pussy, filling her entire groin with thick, hot cock. His lower height left him at the perfect place to lick, suck and gently bite at her rock-hard, fully-erect nipples, too - which he instantly and ceaselessly did, even as his powerful hips began to whip back and forth with no less force than the younger set behind her.

For a while, all she could sense was the pleasure radiating out from her pussy and ass, further accentuated by the tongue playing with her nipples. She didn't need to worry about keeping her balance anymore - the two powerful bodies had her thoroughly caught between them, and strong hands had even lifted her legs from the floor, leaving them bent over a pair of muscular arms as she was buffeted back and forth, sinking down on the twin cocks with her full weight. Occasional kisses peppered her shoulders and the back of her neck, along with the lusty groans and hot breath of the strong, young goat-man behind her.

Somehow, however, the fact that her body's desperate needs were now being properly met, enabled her to focus on other senses for a bit - enough to realize just what she was looking at as she gazed over the wispy white hair of the old man in front of her. Her head upraised for once, and held further off the floor than it might normally be at that, she had an excellent view across the cavern, all of it showing undulating, sweat-covered bodies moving against each other with eager intensity. Standing up or on the floor, kneeling or on all fours, people were fucking and sucking ceaselessly. No cock, be it a small, ordinary tool or one of the goat-men's towering shafts, was left uncovered for long. And above and beyond it all, upon the great altar, stood Theokrios, the Golden Ram - staring imperiously out over the backs of his worshipers.

He was surrounded by eager women, from skinny teenagers to matrons with motherly curves. They were throwing themselves at him, peppering his huge, horned face with kisses or guiding his mouth towards their teats or pussies. Someone was always behind him, head buried underneath his short, golden tail, tonguing it eagerly as other women waited in line for the privilege. He was taller than a draft-horse, and a good thing too, or there wouldn't have been room for the mob that had formed underneath him - worshiping his long, oddly-shaped cock.

Its exact shape was hard to make out, since the front half of it was permanently buried in the throat or pussy of one of his eager supplicants. His sheer length, however, made it impossible for anyone to take it fully - leaving the back of it out in the air, constantly surrounded by three or four eager mouths, being rubbed and whetted by lips and tongues. Further back, even more heads clustered around the huge, swinging, pendulous weight of his ball-sack, the testicles within each larger than two closed fists. There was hardly an empty patch on its golden-fuzzed surface, as the women desperately covered it in licks, kisses and caresses. She couldn't blame them - if ever there was a physical manifestation of the concept of 'Fertility' in the world, it was that vast, heavy ball-sack, churning endlessly with fertile seed.

She had a nagging feeling that, having seen this spectacular display, there was something she ought to do about it. But her head was so fuzzy, and the scent of her two goat-legged lovers so heady... thinking about it was just... too much effort. An orgasm exploded up through her body, seemingly originating in both of her holes at the same time, and obliterated all attempts at thought. Thinking could wait. For now, there was a bottomless need and hot knot of desire within her that needed to be satisfied!

By the time the two dicks inside her reached their climax - nearly simultaneously, at that - and she was lifted off them, more goat-men had clustered around her, brown eyes filled with hunger and lust. Their ever-hard cocks stood like a fleshy forest around her, and the clouds of sweaty musk that surrounded them was overwhelmingly intense. All restraint and self-control fled in the face of that scent, leaving behind only the all-consuming, rutting heat - the desperate, unreasoning need to be filled by hot cocks and fertile sperm.

The goat-men, fortunately, seemed happy to oblige. In a flash, she was on the floor, astride one while another worked his way up her gaping asshole with a low whistle. A third cock dangled tantalizingly before her, and she swallowed it without a second thought, stretching her jaw painfully to take the thick, fleshy head into her mouth. As she wrapped both hands against the shaft beneath and started vigorously jacking him off while moving her head and tongue as much as she could, she found herself vaguely regretting that she did not possess a throat so flexible that she might actually be able to take such a thick shaft all the way down into her gullet, like... someone else she knew...

Still, her efforts were enough to ensure that her stomach soon filled with a hefty load of thick, creamy, nourishing sperm - and meanwhile, the man underneath her was demonstrating that those oddly-shaped goat-legs made thrusting from beneath like that perfectly doable too. All orifices thus filled by thick, hard, fiercely-thrusting cocks, she happily floated away on a cloud of ecstasy, instinctively moving her hips to make the most of them. To welcome them into her eager, receptive body.

On and on it went, in various positions and configurations. On the floor, spit-roast or sandwiched between two standing partners, held up, lifted, on her knees, on her back, on her belly... she didn't care, she simply let the firm hands guide and move her as they willed, knowing that it always led to another hot cock making its way into one of her hungry orifices. Lovers with or without goat-legs, with normal dicks or huge ones, young, middle-aged or old, surrounded her at all times, and she welcomed them all without prejudice. Any time she was left deprived of cock, her holes entirely empty if only for a second, a desperate whimper would emerge from her throat - but fortunately, it never lasted for long.

Everything became more and more fuzzy. She could no longer tell if the hard cocks driving into her from behind were in her pussy or her ass - it was all just a mass of contiguous pleasure, sensation so vibrant that all details were washed out. The smell of cum, piss, sweat and male musk was everywhere, thick enough to carve into cubes. The succession of lovers and orgasms became a washed-out blur - a dreamlike, timeless moment.

Finally, eventually, her head began to clear. The braziers had nearly burned themselves out, their last lingering flames casting a dim light over the cavern as they devoured the last remnants of their fuel. The cavern floor was covered with snoring bodies, a carpet of naked skin that glistened faintly with sweat and other juices. Here and there, little knots of activity remained, usually centered around one of the seemingly tireless goat-men. Most of the worshipers, however, had apparently managed to fuck themselves into a stupor - it was, perhaps, only Sayn's extensive experience that had allowed her to remain awake and increasingly alert.

She wasn't sure if she had simply managed to satisfy her near-bottomless desires, somewhere in the immense orgy - or if the source of her all-encompassing lust had disappeared outright. An aphrodisiac in the brazier's smoke, perhaps? Or in the sweat of the strange goat-men? Or perhaps both. None of the goat-men were near her at the moment, and many of them were snoring on the floor alongside their fully-human peers... she wasn't sure, but she had an inkling as to their origins. A glance towards the altar showed that the Golden Ram was long gone - but it certainly wasn't hard to imagine that a being so intimately bound to the concept of fertility might have left a little something behind, in the wombs of the women who had clustered beneath him.

Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she tried to kick her tired brain, so heavy and soaked with lingering pleasure, into gear. The Golden Ram was here. The locals worshiped him and mated with him, in secret - spawning half-human beings in the process. This had probably gone on for centuries, if not longer - the temple-cave itself seemed ancient. That meant... there wasn't any hurry. Theokrios clearly wasn't going anywhere. She could simply slip out now, maybe find a nice, warm spot to get some real sleep, and come back in the morning when all - or at least most - of the worshipers would be gone. She could vaguely see a blackness, somewhere behind the statue of Mother Beleh - a tunnel, leading deeper into the mountain. Presumably to some inner sanctum where the Golden Ram rested when he was not being actively worshiped.

She could, she supposed, just settle back down again and get some sleep, right there on the floor - like everybody else was doing. The orgy had seemingly managed to heat up the very bedrock of the mountain, leaving the stone pleasantly warm to the touch. She could sleep perfectly pleasantly there, she thought sleepily - maybe using the flank or buttocks of some other exhausted soul as a pillow. But now that her head was clearing, the idea of sleeping here, naked and defenseless, surrounded by hundreds of strangers, was giving her the willies. She also blushingly remembered how she had emptied her bladder on the floor earlier - along with many others - and without the intoxicating lustfulness of the orgy lying like a blanket on her mind, that memory now seemed to add a different, grosser aspect to the floor's warmth.

Grimacing, she got to her feet, and looked around. She wasn't quite the only one mobile. Apparently, there were some fairly sensible rules of conduct for these 'fertility-rites', such as 'Don't relieve yourself on the floor while everybody's sleeping on it' - at least, that was presumably the reason why a handful of people of both genders could be seen staggering tiredly over to the drainage-holes by the walls to use them directly. As long as she was careful, her own movement towards the exit would be taken by any casual observer as having the same purpose.

The cavern's floor was a treacherous surface to navigate, however. Patches of it were noticeably wet or downright slimy - she tried hard not to think about why, considering her bare feet - and of course, there were sleepers strewn everywhere, limbs splayed wide. She was halfway towards the entrance, not far from the great altar, when she finally managed to trip over somebody's carelessly-placed leg, landing directly on top of a man who'd been sleeping on his back. "Sorry!" She hissed, trying to ignore the way his pubic-hair tickling her own, naked slit, stirring still-fresh, barely-buried desires inside her. "sfine..." he mumbled sleepily, eyes craning open mere inches from her face. Then, they flew open, and his hands rose to grab her arms.

"Wait... I know that face! you're her! _ HERE?!? _" his voice rose to a roar that split the sleepy quiet of the cave like a sword cutting through tent-fabric, and in a flash, she recognized him too. He was the Alderman of one of the villages she'd visited earlier - a nervous-looking man with an impressively-curly mustache. His nervousness had made her question him particularly carefully about any possible 'sightings' of the Golden Ram - and no wonder he'd been sweating, seeing as he was, apparently, a member of said ram's secret cult. Cursing under her breath, she almost instinctively shifted her body to clear a leg - and then drove its knee up between his. The roar ended in a rattle, and the hands on her arms loosened enough that she could tear herself loose and spring to her feet again.

The shout, however, had given the sleepy cultists an adrenaline-injection, and more were rising, confused and milling. They wouldn't be confused for long, though, and there was already a mass of bodies between her and the exit. There was no way she'd be able to push past them before the wheezing Alderman got his breath back and told them exactly who to grab. Cursing more loudly now, she backed away, finding her hips soon bumping against the unyielding stone of the great altar. She was already calling to her creatures, her beasts, but all she had within reach were scout-fliers and her Great Winged Beast - which would be hard-pressed to get into the cave at all, and was ill-suited for combat even if it could. She hadn't thought to bring war-beasts, let alone her Iron Legion - after all, she was visiting a particularly peaceful corner of her own Empire's heartlands. What could she possible need fighters for, in quiet old Laswell?

Well, by all rights, she shouldn't need military power even now, she thought sardonically as she clambered on top of the altar - finding it unpleasantly slick under her touch. These people were her subjects, and as far as she knew, they had committed no crimes. All she wanted was a chance to talk to the Golden Ram they worshiped, and convince him to aid her - there was no cause for conflict. And yet, as the Alderman found his breath and cried out "It's the Beastmaker! She's HERE! There, on the Altar!", she could tell from the panicked look on the faces of the other cultists that they didn't see it that way. Sure enough, the next cry that went up was "Get her, before she calls her beasts down upon us!"

They had been hiding their affiliation with Theokrios, kept secret their worship of the Golden Ram, probably since long before her Empire rose to power. Fear of persecution for their inhuman children, fear of treasure-hunters seeking the Great Ram's famous, golden fleece for one of those mythical shirts of invulnerability/virility/whatever... and now, perhaps, fear of a jealous Goddess. She had, after all, been dramatically popping up all over the place, asking piercing questions about the Golden Ram they worshiped in secret, without ever explaining why. For people so used to hiding, something like that was calculated to feed into some serious paranoia. Presumably, they thought she was there to suppress their 'heresy', steal away their living idol, tear down their temples, and convert them to her own Church at swordpoint. And in their present, half-asleep panic, they would not likely be receptive to reassurances to the contrary...

She cursed her own carelessness as she backed further away, having won only minutes by climbing onto the altar. Between the sudden awakening, general fatigue, and adrenaline-fueled shakiness, the crowd of cultists surrounding her were clumsy in the extreme, struggling to even climb onto the waist-high surface. But that wouldn't last long, and already some of them were staggering up there, reaching for her with desperately clawing hands. She had to do something! There was no time to start building new constructs now, but maybe... just maybe...

With a deep breath, she took a final step backwards, and reached out unseeingly behind her. As her hand grasped the foot of the huge statue there enshrined, she let the floodgates of her emotions open, letting her fear, frustration and fatigue drain away into the cold stone - where she felt it mix with the reservoirs of faith, hope and visceral pleasure that centuries of worship and hundreds of orgiastic rituals had left within it. A mighty crack echoed through the cave, and the approaching cultists stopped in their tracks, mouths hanging open in shock. Then, one by one, they fell to their knees.

She risked a glance behind her. The statue of Mother Beleh had risen from its seat, and stood tall enough that her head brushed against the ceiling. She had raised the hand with the peach high, as if getting ready to throw it, and deep cracks marred her face - enabling the normally-pleasant visage to twist into an expression of anger and disappointment. The sheaf of wheat, meanwhile, was being lowered - to hover protectively in front of Sayn's chest.

Some of the cultists were still on their feet, and one of them pointed accusingly up at her. "It's not truly our Mother Beleh! Don't be fooled! It is only her witchcraft moving the holy statue!" Others echoed this, and started spreading out. Some of the cultists peered uncertainly up from their kneeling position, regarding the angry glare of their goddess and weighing those words for themselves. Sayn's heart fluttered. If they came at her seriously, from all sides, would the statue be able to protect her effectively?

" Enough." The voice wasn't loud, so much as heavy - loaded with all the aged authority of a well-respected patriarch. Everyone, including the cultists who had started maneuvering to flank her, froze in their tracks - as did the towering statue, for that matter. The cave was immediately silent, save for a lot of shallow, panicked breathing - and the sharp, clicking sound of hooves against stone. Peering around the thick, stone-pillar legs of her statuesque protector, Sayn saw the target of her quest appear from behind the now-empty throne, golden fleece glimmering brilliantly even in the wan lighting. His head, made huge by the great, curly horns on both sides of it, swung angrily as he let his glare - keen, blue eyes, filled with an entirely unanimalistic intelligence - pan over his assembled worshipers.

He paused next to the altar, the cultists melting out of his way and falling to their knees in his presence. Even those who had refused to be affected by the living statue could not ignore his towering, authoritarian presence. " Would you truly be so foolish as to dirty this sacred place with the blood of a Scion?" His voice was as heavy as his first exclamation had been, and with this longer pronunciation it managed to elaborately convey the deep disapproval of a father who most certainly was not angry, just...disappointed. So very, very disappointed. Most of the cultists winced visibly, shrinking away from that terrible voice, or outright writhing on the floor.

A deep sigh rolled through the cave - a breath from the mouth of the Golden Ram, which seemed to almost sparkle in the darkness. " I led her here myself, that we might speak of matters of import. And here she came, not at the head of an army, but alone and unarmed - to take part in the sacred ritual, as is her right as a Child of Man." The last part seemed to only now be dawning on the recent orgy's participants - a kind of mixed fear, arousal and consternation as they realized that one of the girls they had so eagerly caroused with had been the feared and respected Beastmaker, Empress and Demigoddess. (Or possibly just plain Goddess-made-Flesh, according to some.)

There was a cloud of whispered, heartfelt apologies, largely directed at Theokrios rather than her, but welcome all the same. For his part, he sighed mightily again, and shook his great horns. " All of you, begone. I will speak with the Beastmaker, and bargain for mercy against your folly." The cave cleared faster than she had thought possible - though it helped that no-one seemed inclined to grab any clothes. Considering what the piles of fabric scattered around the floor had likely soaked up, maybe that was understandable. No wonder everyone had been wearing simple, rough-spun clothes despite the festive occasion, she thought with a sudden burst of realization - the ritual probably had an additional component slated for the morning, involving the burning or similar destruction of the discarded clothes, and a massive walk-of-shame down the mountainside afterwards. Symbolic birth, emerging naked from the cave? Sacrifice of the woolen clothes to the great lord of all sheepkind? Something like that, probably. She certainly didn't feel like trying to dig her own clothes out of the piles...

As the cave emptied out, leaving her alone with the huge, golden beast and the living statue - still frozen in its tracks, peach held high - Theokrios glanced up at the being of living stone and spoke in a far softer and more gentle tone than he had used so far. "Please, Mother, return to your rest. I will look after your children." The great state of Mother Beleh turned her head with a grinding noise, and looked down at the Golden Ram. With a sharp, clicking noise her fractured face slid back into its original, gentle expression. Then the statue took a step back and sat down, arms returning to their normal position as it slowly sank back down on its throne.

Through it all, she could feel it - like the tugging of a large, but well-trained dog on a leash. She knew that if she resisted, kept a firm hand on that leash, the statue would stop. It would shrug off the Golden Ram's request, and remain at her side - as a guardian and a symbol of her power. Certainly, it would put her in a psychologically powerful bargaining-position! But she didn't - instead, she let the statue act as it wished, returning to its natural pose and sinking into a deep dormancy from which she suspected if would not soon - or ever - awaken. Bad enough that she had animated a statue of the Goddess who had created her ancestors - parading her in front of her abandoned pet was just pointlessly cruel.

The great, golden ram seemed to recognize her restraint with a quick, grateful nod, before speaking up again - still keeping his voice light, now that there was no rowdy mob of 'children' to be firm with. "Would you care to come to my den? We may speak more comfortably there." Well, seeing as the alternative seemed to involve remaining, naked, on top of an altar in the middle of a huge and now echoingly-empty cavern, that sounded like a good idea. "I would be delighted." She answered politely, and jumped off the altar to follow Theokrios to the passage behind the throne.

Logically speaking, she should probably have refused the offer. She still lacked any real protection - her Great Winged Beast had arrived at the cave, but as she'd suspected, the mouth was too narrow for it to enter without tearing its wings apart. And now she was leaving behind the statue which, however inappropriate it was, did present her with a reliable option for defense. On the other hand, she felt certain - on some subconscious level - that the imposing, golden-fleeced creature she was now following could have crushed the teetering statue if he really wanted to. More importantly, though, she did not feel threatened by his presence at all - instead, there was a sense of reliable safety to him, a sense of being watched over and protected.

She was starting to sense a deeper truth about the Golden Ram's nature. Mother Beleh was a highly maternal figure, as her name suggested - had she created her Pet to be her natural counterpart? A coalescence of the paternal figure, in the form of a great ram? He certainly seemed to possess a fatherly authority - though, the way he conducted himself with his cultist wasn't as familial as all that. That thought made her briefly ponder the orgy she had just been through. She, herself, was sterile - she'd known that for a long time, and the recent confirmation of her half-god status had merely provided an explanation for it. But quite a lot of children had to have been conceived during this ritual, and while in one sense the fact that people from diverse villages had been present meant that it'd serve to provide an important mixing of bloodlines, in another sense there had to have been a number of closely-related people here... and if her own mindset during the event was anything to go by, they wouldn't have been restrained by this, or anything else. Well, perhaps she'd have a chance to voice those concerns to the one who presided over the orgy, later, if all went well...

For now, she found herself in a decent-sized, but still cozy den - seemingly a natural cave with a few man-made modifications and a layer of fresh, pleasant-smelling hay on the floor. It was currently occupied by maybe a score of goat-legged men - probably all of the ones who had been present during the ritual. They were standing, heads bowed, whether to welcome their 'father', or out of respect for her. Their dicks were soft, now, but still obviously oversized as they hung limply between their curly-haired thighs. She was fairly sure she'd had sex with every last one of them, several times in some cases.

Theokrios nodded towards them. "My sons. My Fauns. They came to me when things went ill in the altar-room, and roused me from my sleep. By tradition, they spend the day after the ritual in my presence, that I might impart on them shreds of my wisdom - but I fear I will have other responsibilities to attend to today." The last bit was directed at the men - the 'Fauns', apparently - and they nodded in unison. "We understand, Father." One of the oldest of them replied, nodding his mostly-bald head. It seemed odd to see such an elderly man treat someone with such clear, filial respect - but that was, she supposed, the natural consequence of an immortal being having mortal children. Which, of course, was a rather unusual state of affairs all by itself.

As they began to file out, however, she raised an imperious hand. She was starting to feel increasingly self-conscious about her naked state, and her earlier conclusion about Theokrios being an essentially 'fatherly' being was still fresh in her mind, so... "My steed has alighted outside the cave. If one of you would fetch me a clean set of clothing from its saddlebags, I would be grateful." The Fauns paused in their tread, and looked questioningly over at the Golden Ram. He blandly looked back. "Why would you stare so at me? I may be your Father, but you are human, too - and she is your Empress, as I understand it." In other words, 'do as your mother says!' She suppressed a giggle as the group quickly dashed out, seemingly competing to be the one to carry out her request.

Once they were alone again, the Golden Ram positioned himself before her and, with surprising grace, bent one foreleg in the quadruped's equivalent of a bow. "I do sincerely apologize for the conduct of my children. They were foolish, and driven by fear, but there is no malice in them. I do not believe they would have truly hurt you, had it come to that." She returned the bow with as imperious a nod as she could manage, trying hard to forget that she was still naked and encrusted with various dried-up fluids. "The apology is accepted, though I do not know if I agree with your judgment of events. I know well what frightened people are capable of - and frightened mobs can do much worse." It was easy to fall into the same, slightly stilted and archaic speech-pattern he was using. Hopefully, he wouldn't take it as an insult.

Sighing, Theokrios straightened up again, and then wandered over to a corner where the straw was layered thick, sinking down there, at rest. "I cannot deny that. Will you punish them?" There was genuine regret in his voice - but also an acknowledgment that however much he hoped she wouldn't, she was within her rights to. She considered the question as she found a similarly soft spot and sat down there, wincing slightly as the straw pricked at her bare bum. The den was understandably short on furniture. "No, I don't suppose I will..." she finally said, causing Theokrios to release a sigh of relief. This time, she was fairly certain she could see his breath, sparkling like flecks of gold dancing in the sunlight. "After all, I must bear some of the burden for this misfortunate event, having snuck into their midst incognito. Shock and surprise can make fools of us all, it is said."

He nodded, clearly grateful, and she couldn't quite hide a smile. For an ancient pet of the gods, the Golden Ram was proving to be a remarkably agreeable and humble being - certainly a pleasant change from the sadistic and arrogant Unicorn. Her train of thought was briefly interrupted as a young Faun entered the den, carrying an armful of clothes. It was, if she was not mistaken, the same young man she'd first danced with, back in the barn, and she lifted an eyebrow at him as she took the clothes off his hands. To her surprise, rather than acting at all bashful, he returned her look with the same sparkling, vaguely naughty look he'd had back when, knowing nothing of her true nature, power or status, he'd dubbed her a 'cutie'. A slow blush crept up her cheeks as she waved him away. "Nicely done." She begrudgingly said to his departing back - she had, after all, promised gratitude. He just glanced over his shoulder with a roguish grin. His dick, she realized, hadn't hung limply between his legs - rather, it'd been holding at half-mast, semi-hard. Was he that aroused just from seeing her naked? The blush crept higher, but fortunately, there was no-one to see it now.

With a deep breath, she pulled on the clothes - it was the elegant travel-suit she'd been wearing at the start of the debacle, not perfectly clean anymore, but close enough. Once she was properly dressed again, and sitting more comfortably before the Golden Ram who had patiently waited for her to finish, she nodded at him. "All right, then. Let's talk. I heard you say that you had 'invited' me here, so I take it that you deliberately let that caravan see you?" He snorted in reply. "Of course. I have remained hidden here for centuries. A feat I could hardly have manage if I truly were that careless!"

The explanation for this wordless invitation followed. As she had surmised, the locals had been worshiping him, as an extension of Mother Beleh, for generations. They were used to hiding it, for many good reasons, but had grown a lot more concerned about it since her Empire rose to power. The way her Church had swept aside so much of the worship of the old gods had convinced them that they would be suppressed and censured if they were discovered. The way the Centaurs, previously devout followers of Thenares, had been so overwhelmingly converted to venerate her, had scared them particularly.

Theokrios himself, however, hadn't believed so. "The words that reached my ears were those of a gentle and merciful soul, and your actions made no lies of them. The deeds of others in your name is another matter, but even the long-missing Gods could not prevent their followers from committing foolish deeds in their name. A Scion can hardly be held to a higher standard than that." She could only nod at this, grateful that someone understood. She worried, sometimes, about what her 'priesthood' among the Centaurs had actually done to affect those mass conversions. She liked to believe that they had been motivated solely by the salvation she had offered and delivered, but... she didn't really know.

What Theokrios wanted was simple: For his cult to be acknowledged, and otherwise left alone. That way, they wouldn't have to work so hard and stress so much in order to hide what they were doing... and perhaps his 'sons', the Fauns, could finally walk free, without having to hobble themselves with special-made shoes to conceal their hooves. She nodded at this, a thought beginning to form in her mind - ushered along by the fuzzy memories of the orgiastic pleasures she'd so recently enjoyed. "Well, I'm pretty sure I could get your 'sons' acknowledged and accepted by humanity as a whole - I have a tried-and-true method for that. After all, if I were to take one as a lover, none would be able to say a fell word of them, without insulting me..."

The Golden Ram nodded eagerly at that, showing the delight of a father whose irresponsible son had finally brought home a woman of proper breeding. "Certainly! I am confident that any one of them would be happy to stand by your side - you may take your pick amongst them!" She already knew who she was going to point to, of course, but she wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings. "I cannot defend taking him on as a Consort, you understand..." she explained. "That title holds real, political power in my empire - my Consorts are representatives of their kind. But your Fauns, for all their oddities, are still men, and not a proper race. On the other hand, I doubt any would complain if I simply added a regular concubine to my Harem..."

Theokrios seemed entirely fine with that. "Much as I love my sons, I have no high aspirations for any of them..." he sighed. "They tend to think with the head they carry between their legs, and forgo the other one. I must warn you, however, to guard whatever females, of any race or species, your Harem might hold. Neither faithfulness nor restraint are strong suits for my Fauns, I'm afraid." That, she reassured him, did not worry her. And then, with the horse-trading (or Faun-trading) thus out of the way, she got down to brass tacks: He'd made his request, and it seemed reasonable, but there was also something she wanted.

Once again, the Golden Ram proved to be remarkably agreeable, compared to the other Pets she had encountered. "Salvation for the Elves, is it? Well, I expect they must have learned their lesson by now... Mother Beleh had their measure when she made Mankind, you know. She knew that the Elves would see you as their lessers, and take you for servants and slaves. And she knew that their arrogance would bring a terrible fall with it, sooner or later, even if she could not have predicted how. And you did not disappoint her, that much I can promise! When the Elves fell, you stepped forth and easily took their place as the lords of this world. The unity and stability your Empire has brought, well, one could see this as the final culmination of Mother's plan!"

Sayn was blushing again, though for more wholesome reasons. This was high praise indeed, especially from such a source - both of humanity, which she still considered herself part of despite her semi-divine origins, and of her personally. With Theokrios readily agreeing to lend her his aid, and a pair of Fauns quietly appearing with cups of strong tea and a platter loaded with food - leftovers from the earlier stages of the party, she suspected - she felt quite justified in indulging her curiosity, asking into the practices of the cult that had grown around the Golden Ram, and the boons he provided them in return.

Her questions were readily answered, and it all proved to be a touch more complicated than she'd expected. The great orgy she had just participated in was an annual event - making her arrival particularly fortuitous, or rather, making Theokrios' decision to show himself to a passing caravan particularly well-timed. On every other full moon, however, a lesser ritual was held - involving a handful or two of ladies (chosen by lot from among the ever-numerous volunteers) servicing Theokrios, while any young couples who were finding it difficult to conceive made love on the floor before the altar. If a pregnancy did not result from this, it was clear proof that one or both of them were entirely sterile.

The big orgy, meanwhile, was known as the Ritual of the Pregnant Moon, and any child conceived during it was locally known as a Child of the Land. Rather than having any specific origin, they were actually conceived of a mixture of seeds, courtesy of Theokrios' power - giving them the best features of ALL their potential fathers. They were, inevitably, strong and healthy children, with boys growing up to be particularly virile, and girls growing up to be... particularly shapely, as he so delicately put it.

Meanwhile, the women who had taken his seed within them would carry it home in their wombs, and there spread it on the fields, or mix it in their animal's fodder - guaranteeing a bountiful harvest or many healthy births among their animals, usually sheep of course. As for the Fauns... "They spring only from seed sown in fallow fields." Any woman in the entire region who found herself to be infertile, due to birth-defect, illness, or even damage from a troublesome pregnancy, would make a pilgrimage to his cave for one of the full-moon rituals - and come away from it carrying one of his 'sons'. There weren't as many such women as there once had been, he commented proudly - his influence had seen to that. After all, no child conceived in his presence ever had a shred of infertility about them, and neither did their children... but for now, the Fauns lingered, and he was quite proud of them in an exasperated, head-shaking sort of way.

The Fauns were not, themselves, capable of having children... but they spread fertility wherever they went, all the same. When their seed had washed out a woman's womb, it became exceedingly receptive - making it quite easy for them to conceive, and leading to both easy, healthy pregnancies and frequent twins and triplets. It was enough to make Theokrios wonder why so many couples came all the way to his cave to conceive, when most villages had one or two of sons living right there, and usually eager to help! His clear lack of understanding for the basics of male pride and insecurity made Sayn giggle a bit - clearly, despite his long relation with humanity, there were still aspects of it that mystified him.

The Fauns, unsurprisingly, were not the marrying sort, and instead tended to offer their 'services' to any unattached or lonely women in the village... while managing to seduce a remarkable number of young virgins. "With THOSE tools?" She burst out, wide-eyed, and Theokrios grinned. "Laswell virgins are made of stern stuff. Many of them carry some influence of mine, after all." Not that having a first experience with such a well-hung, powerful creature didn't leave its mark - women who'd lost their virginity to a Faun tended to prefer staying with Fauns, and were sometimes referred to as 'Nymphs'. The frequent infusions of the Faun's borderline-magic cum tended to make them particularly healthy and vivacious - and, of course, fertile, though it was rare for any normal man to catch her fancy long enough for that to matter. Instead, they tended to conceive during the Ritual of the Pregnant Moon.

Of course, up 'till now, Fauns and Nymphs alike had generally maintained a front of wholesome normalcy for the benefit of travelers, tourists and foreign merchants - if the masks really were to fall now, quite a few repeat visitors might be surprised to find out that what they had _thought_was a nice, young couple living with an aged father was, in fact, a lustful Nymph whose body was regularly shared by the pair of ever-horny Fauns she lived with. Quite a few of the Fauns enjoyed traveling, too, often taking on delivery-jobs that would allow them to guest a variety of villages - sharing their blessings with Nymphs, widows and dissatisfied housewives wherever they went. Young and old alike, every Faun had the same basic take on life - treating it as a game wherein the main goal was finding their way into as many warm orifices as possible.

This quest was assisted somewhat by the fact that their sweat, as she had surmised, was a mild aphrodisiac - albeit one that did not reach its full potency until the musk of several Fauns had combined with the smoke that resulted when a particular, local mushroom, properly dried, was burned in the braziers of the altar-hall. Sayn had to pat herself a bit on the back for having correctly identified both sources of the mind-fogging effect that had sent her into such a frenzy of lust... but, of course, not in time to actually do anything about it, she reminded herself.

"Actually... I must say to you what I said to the Unicorn." She wasn't happy to mention that unpleasant creature in the same breath as the polite, helpful and respectful Theokrios, but... "As far as I am concerned, as long as you live within my Empire, you are one of my subjects and thus beholden to the same laws." The Golden Ram blinked, and then hesitantly nodded. "Have I broken any of the Empire's laws?" He asked, sounding worried. She shook her head. "Not as such, no. You want to throw an occasional, drug-fueled orgy, that's none of the Empire's business. However, since these orgies are thrown by and for you, they are your responsibility - meaning, it's up to you to ensure that everyone involved is a consenting adult who knows exactly what he or she is getting into. You might need to take more precautions against random travelers blundering into the middle of the ritual than just a rather weak password at the barn-door, is what I'm saying..."

Theokrios seemed to blush a little at that, and promised that he'd take steps to ensure that no-one who wasn't supposed to be there, found their way into the cave's lurid rituals in the future. Thus, with her task accomplished, the snacks eaten, the tea drunk, her curiosity sated and the legal necessities observed, she thanked him for his hospitality and promised that she would call upon him as soon as the necessary arrangements had been made for the ritual that would free the Elves from their sterile fate.

Leaving the den, she found the Fauns busy at work, cleaning the large ritual-cave - carrying mounds of clothes soaked with various bodily fluids out front, mopping the floor, washing down the altar, and generally acting like good little boys who knew that daddy wasn't far away and would be most disappointed if they didn't do their chores. Pausing, she looked around and spotted her mark - the tall, handsome young Faun she'd first met in the party's opening stages, currently wielding a mop with far less grace than he'd wielded the stick between his legs earlier.

Deciding that subtlety was a pointless affection around such lusty creatures, she marched right up to him and flashed him a gleaming grin. "You. Tell me your name." "Silas, ma'am. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, an' all that." She shook her head. "Don't call me ma'am. I'm not a bar-maid or baker's wife. Your Father has offered me my pick amongst your brothers, and I'm picking you." While his eyes were still widening, she reached up and grabbed a handful of his long, curly black hair, using it to pull his head down to her level. "So starting now, you may call me 'Mistress'."

She was rewarded with something that vaguely resembled a blush, before it was replaced by an eager grin. The young Faun - Silas - ducked his head. "Yes, Mistress! I am yours to command." She nodded curtly and released his hair. "That's more like it. Now, head on home, pack what you need, and give whatever Nymphs you keep around one last good fuck. I'll send one of my Beasts to pick you up shortly - and take you to my Palace, where you will be my Concubine. Do not expect to get much rest..."

The Faun could barely contain his glee as he obeyed, skipping out on the rest of the cleaning and drawing the jealous gazes of every last Fauns in the cave as he did so. She waved casually at them as she followed Silas out the front entrance, at a somewhat more sedate pace. "Sorry, boys... he just made a good first impression, is all. But tell you what - maybe if I feel like throwing a celebration at the Palace, and need a few extra... hands, I'll send around some invitations to you all. Think you'd be interested?" There was a veritable roar of agreement, and she smiled brightly as she walked out into the morning sunshine - albeit a rather wan sort of sunshine, filtered through the nigh-permanent Laswell cloud-cover.

Silas made quite an impression on her Consorts when she introduced him - naked, massively erect and wearing a broad leather collar with a name-tag. Having flown home on the back of her Great Winged Beast, Sayn had had enough time to make various preparations before the ground-bound riding-beast she sent to collect her new prize returned. First and foremost, she wanted to make it immediately apparent that there was a difference between a Consort and a Concubine. She had, by herself, managed to turn the title of Consort into a highly-desirable and genuinely influential one, describing an inner circle of advisers, assistants and ambassadors, who just happened to also be her friends and lovers. Silas, however, was her first Concubine, and he was only there for one thing - and it didn't involve his handsome, horned head. Some men would have found this insulting and humiliating. He was delighted.

Well, his delight might not have been just down to his new job - he also seemed terrible elated at being able to work in the buff. "It is SO nice not to have to wear those stupid, baggy pants - never mind those awful shoes!" he sighed, leaping around the Seraglio's garden with an agility that certainly seemed far from the hobbled pace of the disguised Fauns she'd seen during her trip to Laswell. He balanced easily on a rounded boulder at the edge of the pond, cloven hooves close together, and then bowed extravagantly towards the assembled Consorts. "Now then! Who may I service first? I am eager to get started!"

That much was obvious from the hypnotic swaying of his inhumanly-large cock. "Oh my..." mumbled Lutra, while Aishee just stared wide-eyed from the water, her webbed hands already making their way down to the gap in the front of her fish-tail. Thielwen licked her lips, gaze darting from the eye-catching, swaying rod to the strong, curly-haired hips it was attached to - presumably pondering what it would be like to work her face into the crack between those furry buttocks. (Considering the mildly-aphrodisiac properties of Silas' heady Faun-smell, Sayn figured that the Elf-girl - who had recently admitted that the smell was a large component of her love for ass-licking - would be a regular visitor to the Faun's fuzzy rear.)

Slira, meanwhile, just jumped forwards. "Oooh, me! I wanna go first!" And Silas, seemingly entirely unconcerned with the Sirrush female's reptilian frame, eagerly jumped off his boulder and towards her. "As the Lady desires!" The presence of a single cloaca rather than a separate pussy and asshole beneath her tail also failed to give him pause, and seconds later the Faun's powerful hips were in full swing, pounding Slira as he held a firm grip on her tail - showing not a hint of self-consciousness at the presence of a rather mixed audience.

Even Korlin had to raise an eyebrow. "I've read about them - the Fauns. Theokrios spawned many of them during the Age of Gods. I'm surprised that they're still around... but not unpleasantly so." Sayn giggled at this, wondering if perhaps the two of them might not have some fun sharing the eager-to-please Faun some night or other. "I can see why. They are a most... lively sort, aren't they? And they know how to spread it around..." Well, Silas certainly did - whether it was his attitude, his aphrodisiac sweat, or - more likely - a combination thereof, he was soon pulling the entire Harem along into an improvised orgy.

Some of the male members of the Harem were initially less than pleased with the new addition - notably Achidias, who was vaguely heard mumbling "Well, mine's still bigger..." after Silas' initial introduction. But tones soon changed when it became clear that, far from exhausting the Harem's female members, a session with Silas just seemed to get them fired up and ready for more. It was particularly noticeable with Aishee, whose preferences normally ran towards voyeurism and some light, lesbian action - but she also enjoyed eating creampies out of her freshly-fucked peers, and when the cream came courtesy of Silas, the taste always seemed to put her in the mood for something more... substantial. Such as pulling herself up on the rock-shelf at the pond's shallow corner and eagerly inviting Achidias, K'teshi, or Orichaniel to find their way to her tight pussy, or even - in the later case - to her even-tighter tail-hole.

Actually, though all of the female occupants of the Seraglio regularly took advantage of Silas' eagerly-dispensed 'services', the only one for whom he became a primary diversion was the same one who'd leaped at the opportunity to claim him first - Slira. Her love of big cocks had initially drawn her to Achidias - for the length - and K'teshi - for the thick knot - but in both cases, their quadruped bodies had proven troublesome. Her tail, as it turned out, couldn't bend too far forwards - not enough to enable them to 'mount' her in the traditional sense. With K'teshi, she managed by rolling over on her back, but this was a touch awkward for both - especially since the young Griffon had to be quite careful of the razor-sharp, crescent-shaped claws at the tip of each of her feet, the very feature that had given her tribe their name. With Achidias, it was even more awkward - she had to basically bend her head down to the ground, legs kept straight, ass in the air and tail bent as far forwards as it would go. Like that, the Centaur could just about manage to mount her, with her tail pushing rather firmly against his belly and chest. The thrust-angle was off, though, and it was a too uncomfortable a position for Slira to maintain for long - so all in all, less than ideal.

Silas, though... with his strong hands, dexterous body and powerful hips, he was perfectly suited for lifting her tail, holding on firmly, and ramming her cloaca with smooth, powerful thrusts. Her near-boundless appetites were enough to keep up with his own nigh-infinite virility, turning the two of them - Swift-Claw Sirrush from the Southern Jungles and half-goat Faun from the rainy reaches of peaceful Laswell - into an unlikely but remarkably well-matched couple. On most days, when not occupied with something (or somebody) else, he could usually be reliably located in the Slira's sparsely-appointed chambers.

There was no chambers assigned to Silas - both as part and parcel of his role as a simple Concubine, and out of necessity. The architects who had originally designed the Seraglio had made a separate chamber for each of the eight known races, and an extra besides - which showed impressive foresight on their part. By now, however, they were all occupied. Orichaniel had taken the chamber set aside for a potential Dragon Consort, a position that would likely be left forever unoccupied anyway, and Slira had received the last spare. (Which was, at the moment, largely unfurnished - accustomed as she was to living in a small, simple hut, and sharing it with two sisters, she found the basic chambers fairly overwhelming and didn't really know what to do with them. Sayn had commissioned some specialized furniture to suit the Sirrush's unique physiology, though, and hoped that this would help make it a bit less... spartan.)

Silas, thus, slept in the room of whoever he had most recently serviced (which was usually, as mentioned, Slira), and otherwise slept under the stars in the garden - something he seemed quite happy to do, even as the weather began to turn towards autumn. He wound up in Sayn's bed fairly often too, though - it was a monstrously huge thing, after all, and she liked having someone to share it with. It wasn't unusual for her to spend the night with Lutra, Korlin or Thielwen there, but sometimes, she just... felt like having a solid foot of thick, hot cock lodged up one of her nether orifices, rather than messing around with sweet sighs and featherlight kisses. The only other male lover of hers who could actually fit under her bedcovers was Orichaniel, and he wasn't really built for spooning...

Of course, she hadn't recruited a Harem just so she could pick and choose. Why stop at one? The combination of elation at her successful recruitment of the three key Divine Pets, and the gentle, aphrodisiac musk Silas was spreading throughout the Seraglio was lighting a new, perverted creativity at her. Taking two of her resident lovers to her bed at night became common while she started working on setting up the ritual that would once and for all save the Elves - with Silas being an often-convenient 'secondary'. This naturally resulted in many a sexually-charged morning, which she couldn't claim to mind...

An early pleasure was waking up to the sensation of Thielwen's soft, practiced tongue caressing her sphincter, removing lingering soreness from the pounding Silas had given it the night before... even as a certain jerkiness in said tongue's movements indicated that the Faun was currently applying his morning wood to the Elf-girl's rear end. On another occasion, that same morning wood woke her up directly - when it hardened inside her pussy, easing her into consciousness and the realization that she'd gone to sleep on top of Silas' hairy chest... with Orichaniel snoring on her back, the tip of his bulbous cock still lodged in her ass.

Of course, as she had first envisioned during Silas' introduction to the Harem, she also spent a number of sweaty nights and languid mornings sharing the virile Faun with her beloved Korlin - one of them usually riding his cock while the other sat on his face, receiving his best oral efforts. At other times, Korlin would unveil her own, sizable cock and treat Sayn to an organ-rattling double penetration along with the unshakable Faun, who seemed to be equally at home sharing an Empress' orifices with one of the mythical Kirin, as he did seducing farmers' daughters back in Laswell.

And then there was that time when she woke up still wrapped in Lutra's silken ropes, her head resting on the Otterkin's fuzzy pelvis, her legs spreadeagled and her ass in the air. Silas, who had spent the night before playing the obedient assistant, applying his hard cock or trained tongue as Lutra directed, happily took advantage of this situation - ramming her helplessly exposed pussy until her quiet moans woke up Lutra, who grinned down at her and remarked that since she was already there and all, she might as well bring her Mistress off with her mouth before she was untied.

Not all of the awakenings were that pleasant, though. On another occasion where she'd taken Thielwen and Silas to her bed, she instead woke to blearily spot her Elven friend kneeling next to it, her lips wrapped tight around the Faun's hefty cockhead, her throat working visibly and continuously. Once Sayn's tired brain caught up to the fact that Silas' cock was semi-hard at best, logic quickly followed through to a conclusion that made nausea rise in her throat.

When she subsequently confronted Thielwen about this, the Elf blushingly admitted that 'recent events' - including talking to Sayn about certain heady experiences she'd had with the Lizardkin Ssinizz during her temporary assignment to the Seraglio - had made her think about the 'unique experience' of, well, drinking pee. And Silas' pee had, of course, turned out to have a particularly strong smell and taste. "He was leaving bed to relieve himself, and I just... couldn't resist. I think I was still half-asleep myself. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Thielwen's obvious contrition made Sayn feel as if she was the one who was being unreasonable and intolerant, and with a sigh she reassured the Elf-girl that what she chose to get up to with the other members of the Harem was entirely her business - just as long as she didn't do it in Sayn's bedroom.

She remained cagey about bringing that particular combo to bed afterwards, though - not that this stopped her from occasionally spotting the two of them in a corner of the garden, with it being a coin-toss whether Thielwen would have her face buried between Silas' hairy ass-cheeks, or her lips wrapped tightly around his semi-hard cockhead while he emptied his bladder down her throat. Well, diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, she reminded herself. If Thielwen wanted to indulge in a new kink that she, personally, found nauseating, she was certainly free to do so.

For a while, this party-like atmosphere endured in the Seraglio, even as the autumn weather began to assert itself fully, chasing most lovers out of the garden and into their heated rooms. Three Divine Pets had agreed to help, and together they filled all of the requirements that the Kirin, Seian, had proscribed for a spell that could grant the Elves a new, mortal, but fertile life. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the last details to be worked out by the Kirin sages - all five of whom had united behind the proposed solution, now, after a couple of them had exhausted their options trying to find a way to retrieve the Divine Sparks of all the Elves who had died during the Civil War and subsequent slave-uprising. As far as they had been able to determine, those Sparks weren't in this world anymore - having presumably floated away, out into the aether, in pursuit of the Goddess they belonged to.

Meanwhile, reports from the Elves - not actually meant for her eyes, but dutifully passed on by Thielwen anyway - revealed that the new Ansible had been finished, and proven functional by initial tests. It would soon be handed over to her, along with its ancient twin, in a ceremony of suitable pomp and circumstance. Normally, she would've been rather impatient about this, but the turning of the year had enabled her to take a philosophical stance. One of the Ansibles would, of course, be shipped to the Southern Continent - probably to be enshrined in Twinharbor - with all haste, but it was already getting late enough in the year that this probably meant 'next spring'. It would be tragic indeed if the ship carrying it encountered an early storm and sank, after all... no point in taking foolish risks with something so precious, as she sardonically commented to Korlin.

Light as the spirits were, when a belated summer day returned sun-drenched warmth to the increasingly brown and crispy garden, it was hardly a surprise that it brought the Harem's residents out for one last orgy on the grass before winter set in. While such impromptu gatherings weren't new by any means, the growing number of Consorts had made them more elaborate, and Silas' recent addition seemed to make them even more energetic and wanton than before. The familiar sound of moans and sloppy, interlocking genitals echoes between the walls of the Seraglio...

Sayn herself eagerly joined the chorus, finding herself delightfully filled in short order as she was sandwiched between Achidias' huge, equine body above, and the nimble, flexible Silas below. Despite the two initially striking some sparks off each other, they had proven to work well together - due at least in part to a somewhat one-sided rivalry; Achidias, still young enough to feel a bit uncertain about himself and his abilities, always seemed to be stirred to greater feats of lovemaking by Silas' presence, clearly eager to prove to himself and his partners that he was still the #1 big-dicked love-machine in the Seraglio!

She had already been lifted through two solid, breathtaking orgasms by the twin cocks moving in counterpoint-rhythm in and out of her pussy and ass, when a dark cloud seemed to cover the smiling sun and plunge the little park back into an autumn chill. Moments later, she heard some of the other members of the Harem gasp, and peered out from beneath Achidias' flanks to see them stare awestruck up at the skies. Once she let her eyes trace the outline of the shadow that now covered them all, clear against the still sun-drenched corners of the garden, she realized why - and with a reluctant groan, started to leverage herself out of the delicious sandwich she'd been enjoying.

The orgy had ground to a solid halt by the time she was on her feet, feeling only mildly self-conscious about her nudity and the stains marking her groin and inner thighs. She'd identified the visitor well before he landed by the pond-side, just by the way his scales gleamed jet-black in the sun - and there was little point in trying to cover herself up before_him_. He had shrunk himself, she noticed - something he rarely did. But in this case, it was necessary - in his natural size, he could just barely have fitted in the garden, but not without knocking over a few trees and crowding everyone else out.

He was still a towering, magnificent beast, though, and she could feel her Consorts - save for Korlin, who was looking blandly up at him - shrink away from his aura of commanding majesty. She could feel it herself, too, of course... that deep-seated desire to fall on her knees and worship this great and powerful creature - and his great and powerful cock. The knowledge that if she only let him, he could look after her, take care of her, fulfill all of her needs... but, this was a temptation she had faced several times now, and standing here - in the center of her power, surrounded by her friends - it was easier than ever to simply push that feeling away and stand proud before him, head held high.

"Aterxeus! Come to take me up on my offer after all?" She called to him, and the black dragon grinned broadly. "Hah... yes and no, I suppose. No, if you mean your invitation for me to join this admittedly lovely Seraglio as your Consort. Entertaining though it would no doubt be, I still have studies and research I need to focus on, alas! But I suppose I am taking you up on the offer to visit, as it were." She nodded, lifting an eyebrow. "That much is obvious... so, here to join the orgy, then? I'm sure I can find a... position for you." She knew the answer before his handsome, reptilian head even started to shake. "Alas, no... well, not that I'd mind a bit of a diversion, you understand. It's been a while since I last flew so far, and the exertion has made me feel quite vigorous!" He grinned naughtily then, letting his eyes briefly pan over the female members of the Harem, all naked and bearing the signs of recent sex. With the exception of Korlin, once again, they all seemed to take a half-step towards him, arousal written all over their faces. A dragon's will was a powerful force, and when they extended their desires towards you, your body answered automatically - she knew this well, and now her friends were learning it firsthand too.

Then, however, he sighed, and the spell was broken. "That will have to wait, however. As you may have surmised, I have come here for a reason. Specifically, I figured I'd save you some frustrations and an inevitable visit to my home." Sayn narrowed her eyes, already sensing the outline of the clearly bad news he was bringing. "Been keeping an eye on my progress, I'm guessing?" She asked snarkily, and he nodded without trace of shame. "Of course. I could not watch when you visited Xangri-Du - the barrier there stops even my eyes - but I heard you account the results thereof to your Consorts. The idea certainly seems solid - but you're still missing something!"

"What?" she asked, feeling the recent sense of success-driven elation leave her in favor of frustrated disappointment. "I've got someone who can remove a Divine Spark, someone who can shape a new, mortal life, and someone who can keep the subject alive through it all. Isn't that supposed to cover it?" Aterxeus nodded. "Certainly. What you're missing, however, is coordination. None of the three you recruited have any experience working together. Each have their own approach to magic, as granted by their respective creators. The spell you're asking them to perform, meanwhile, would require for them to work seamlessly together. It would take years, if not decades of dedicated practice for them to actually accomplish that - and at the very least, I doubt that the Unicorn would remain cooperative for that long!"

She cursed under her breath, angry that she hadn't considered that aspect. Certainly, he was right. The benevolent Quetzalcoatl and the calm, easy-going Theokrios might be willing to dedicate a few years of their eternal lives to the cause she'd put before them, but the wild and selfish Unicorn certainly wouldn't. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm. "So... you wouldn't happen to have a solution in mind? One that won't take decades to put into practice?" To her relief, Aterxeus nodded. "I do, in fact - at least, a _potential_solution. It's nothing complicated, either - you just need to keep doing what you've been doing so far..."

Stroking her cheek thoughtfully, Sayn nodded. "I see... you're talking about the Hydra, right? I'd been leaving it for last, since all I'd heard about it was some rather vague suggestions that it 'knows many secrets' and thus probably had the ability to help. I'd figured on it being a final gambit, should any of the other three prove uncooperative." Aterxeus chuckled. "I doubt ol' Hydra would be pleased to hear that he has been relegated to the status of 'backup'. But you are right about one thing - he knows many secrets. Practically all of them, in fact. And while I have never met him myself, my teacher told me of him - including the fact that he has a particular interest in his fellow 'pets'. If any being in this world is capable of coordinating the efforts of three such powerful, unique creatures, it is Hydra."

With a sigh, Sayn shrugged. "I see... well, guess I've got a bit more work to do. Before I get down to that, though... and I'm sure you have some information to share on the subject..." she let her eyes sweep lightly over her Consorts, who had been silently watching the exchange at a respectful distance. "We were, as you no doubt know, in the middle of a bit of an orgy, just to celebrate that it's such a nice day today. Since there's no dark shadow hiding the sun anymore, I see no reason why we shouldn't resume. So - care to join in?" The great, black-scaled dragon grinned in reply. "My dear, I would be absolutely delighted..."

With this unexpected addition, it proved to be a day to remember - for all that the news he brought had somewhat soured the festive atmosphere. The dragon's desires were infectious, to say the least - turning Silas' aphrodisiac sweat into a joke by comparison. The women flocked around him, eager to sample his skills - while the men were spurred to new heights by an instinctive desire to try and compete. Even K'teshi, who had hissed menacingly and flared his wings when the dragon first appeared, was drawn into the general atmosphere - and Aterxeus, for his part, did not appear to bear the Griffon the same sort of malice that Sayn had sensed from the only other dragon she'd ever met, Praxinus. Maybe it was just because he spent so much of his time hidden away in his volcanic lair, doing complicated magical research, rather than flying around and getting into arguments about who _really_owned the sky, she thought with some amusement.

She, herself, kept her distance from the scaly beast who had now become the centerpiece of the orgy - she'd had her chance to enjoy his skills and powers already, after all, and for now, she was happy to give her friends an opportunity to do so as well. So instead, she availed herself to the reinvigorated efforts of her male Consorts (and Concubine, of course) while watching Aterxeus carouse with the girls. Slira had been first in line again, her unabashed eagerness to sample the towering dragon's equipment - what did he look like to a Sirrush, anyway? Like the Unicorn looked to a normal horse, perhaps - or a Kirin in humanoid form to a normal human being.

Either way, Aterxeus had bemusedly answered the rather direct request of his much-smaller reptilian cousin, and was now pounding her cloaca with a cock that seemed like it should really be too large for her small frame. Thielwen, meanwhile, had snuck up behind them, and was now digging her head in under the dragon's broad tail, her tongue tracing the edges of his sphincter while an expression of unholy ecstasy colored her face. Well, to someone so addicted to licking ass, getting the opportunity to sample a dragon's must certainly seem like a divine blessing!

However, for all that he had refused to do so during her original, week-long stay in his cave, Aterxeus seemingly had no trouble changing his size - and thus, the size of his simple-looking but fully-prehensile cock. So even those members of Sayn's Harem who lacked the physiology - or courage - to try him on in the near-full size he'd originally landed in still got their chance. Once he was down to around the size of a pony, Aishee and Lutra could join in and soon found themselves writhing under his powerful thrusts, his sheer presence clearly hitting them just as hard as his pounding cock.

Once he had managed to screw both of them into near-insensibility, however, he grew back to his previous size - and turned on Thielwen, who had simply shifted her head a bit downwards when he shrank earlier, and otherwise continued her eager exploration of his tail-hole. The Elf's uncanny ability to synchronize the movements of her head to whatever thrusting-frequency an asshole's owner was setting had extended as easily to Aterxeus' powerful poundings, but now he was rounding on her and demanding that she 'surrender her body to him' in repayment for the delicacy she'd treated herself to. Needless to say, she was on the ground with her ass in the air practically before he finished talking.

His present size was enough to challenge even the inhuman flexibility of her Elven body - probably by design, knowing him. She was thoroughly impaled, her labia stretched paper-thin around a shaft that seemed thicker than her (admittedly skinny) thighs. A solid handspan of thick cock was left out in the cold even as he bottomed out in her, pushing as deeply into her birth-canal as he could go - much to his loudly-voiced disappointment. Being apparently busy shuddering her way through an orgasm brought on by the sensation of overwhelming fullness and stretching, she could only manage to blubber out a semi-coherent apology, which Aterxeus accepted with a snort before declaring her pussy 'unsuitable for his use' and pulling out.

Her cunt gaped elastically in its absence, labia twitching as they started to return to their original size and shape. The follow-up was inevitable - the huge, tapered cockhead now pushed its way into the Elf-girl's sphincter, giving it the same tautly-stretched treatment as it forged deeper inside her slender body. This time, he managed to bottom out, even if it seemed like such a feat should be impossible - certainly, it had to be driving the air from Thielwen's lungs in a very literal manner! As the huge dragon began to vigorously fuck the tiny, trembling Elf-girl underneath him, however, Sayn was finding it increasingly difficult to focus on what she was seeing.

Behind her, Achidias and Silas - working in concert once again - had pulled off something entirely new, that she'd never before experienced or imagined. Their two large, thick, hard cocks were currently occupying her ass together, well-lubricated shafts sliding against each other as they fucked her in a see-saw pattern. Their combined girth was straining her sphincter to the limit, reminding her rather forcibly of her experience with the larger Sirrush-tribes, months earlier in the jungles of the Southern Continent. Certainly, she couldn't complain about their orifice-stretching burst of creativity - especially since it meant that her pussy was available for Orichaniel's skillful use, the agile Flower-Dragon having rolled over on his back and stabilized himself with his wings so that she could mount his bulbous, ribbed cock. The final cherry on top came when Korlin, sporting a solid erection and a naughty grin, kneeled in front of her - allowing her to wrap her lips around that thick, luscious meat-road, so that her tongue might dance on the velvet-smooth head.

Of course, this meant that Korlin's lovely, naked body was blocking most of her field of view - a fact that turned into a blessing a while later when she glimpsed, around the side of the Kirin's hips, Aterxeus present his slimy, cum-stained cock to Thielwen, who embraced it without hesitation and began to lick it clean. A slight shift of her head was enough to hide the sight from her eyes, fortunately, and she tried her best not to think of it. She couldn't help but wonder if it was a deliberate poke at her from Aterxeus, though, what with the way their last encounter had ended...

She let that niggling thought drown in the rising pleasure of four hard cocks invading her various orifices - a new personal record, and one that made her wonder if she could still one-up it. Her pussy was just as flexible as her ass, after all! Of course, the logistics were likely to get rather complicated - as it were, she wasn't entirely sure how Silas was managing to lodge himself under Achidias' gyrating hindquarters at an appropriate angle to thrust alongside him. For that matter, the only 'spare' male (or part-time male, in Korlin's case) she had on hand was K'teshi, who would be difficult to 'fit in', to say the least.

One by one, in a staggered pattern, the four cocks sprayed their hot, slimy load inside her. Ori came first, his knot failing to affect a proper tie behind her flexible labia as he sprayed his sticky, sap-like cum into her womb. Then Silas and Achidias, close together, conspiring to flood her bowels with an overwhelming double load - much of it flowing back into the gaps between their hard cocks, dribbling out her widely-stretched sphincter and presumably staining Silas' hairy groin. Finally Korlin, assisted only by Sayn's jerking hand and oft-distracted tongue, deposited a delicious, flavorful load on her tongue.

By the time the knot of hot bodies surrounding her had dissolved, leaving Sayn gasping on the grass with cum oozing from every orifice, the display at the pond-side had shifted to something she found less unpleasant. Thielwen was in a similar situation to her own, reclining in the grass as she recovered from her trial, dragon-cum flowing steadily from her widely-gaping asshole and staining her pretty face. Meanwhile, Slira had apparently gotten her second wind after nearly passing out from the intensity of Aterxeus' earlier assault on her cloaca - and was now showing her still-gaping orifice before him, asking if perhaps he'd like to try again, but just a _little_bit bigger this time?

Lutra and Aishee had seemingly recovered from their own encounter with the dragon's huge and skillful cock, at least partially - with Aishee having apparently gotten there first. At least, that's what Sayn guessed from the fact that she was currently on her back on the pond's rock-shelf, getting mounted by K'teshi. Looking at the way he was bending his eagle-like head, panting and jerking his hips, he must have been at it for a while - thus neatly explaining where he'd been while she was setting new records. Lutra, meanwhile, seemed to only now be getting back on her feet, and as she watched, Achidias approached her, his cock dripping with cum but still hard as ever.

She grimaced as she watched Lutra eagerly grab the white-stained rod and start to lick the fresh, salty goo from it. She was starting to feel like she_was the odd one for caring that Achidias' cock was fresh out of her own ass. Thielwen seemed to actually enjoy going ass-to-mouth, as did Korlin to a lesser degree... while Lutra and Aishee just didn't seem to care enough to actively avoid it. Well, in a situation like that, it wasn't as if the shapely Otterkin would be tasting anything other than the heady mix of Centaur- and Faun-cum. She sighed. Maybe she_was just being weird about it because of the way she had first been... 'introduced' to that particular act. After all, when she did it with Korlin a couple of months ago, for the second time ever, it had been... fun. It wasn't that she'd enjoyed the taste, as such - not that there was much to taste, she kept her ass clean thankyouverymuch - but rather that it was a highly intimate and boundary-breaking act.

Glancing up, she realized that Silas hadn't left her side. He was sitting on a nearby rock, watching her Consorts carouse, his cock still rising hard and firm from his loins - completely covered in a gooey layer of cum. Having been on the bottom, he must have gotten the lion's share of the 'backflow' when the huge, combined load had flooded her ass. Wetting her lips, she shrugged and - with a bit of unsteady staggering - got to her feet. He looked up at her as she approached, his grin as naughty as ever, eyes sparkling with desire that did not distinguish between species, or shy away from any act his partners might desire.

"Let me help you with that..." she mumbled as she bent over his hips and lowered her head over his upraised cock. She hesitated only momentarily, her lips millimeters from the cum-caked head - then she took the plunge, engulfing it in her mouth. The Faun's strong, salty cum hit her tastebuds, with Achidias' somewhat more bitter ejaculate mixing with it to create an interesting cocktail. If there was something else underneath those powerful flavors, mixed in, she couldn't tell. Her nostrils were picking up a bit more as they flared a bare inch from the slimy shaft - a vague, sour undertone to the familiar cum-smell. It was nothing she would have noticed if she hadn't been specifically alert for it, though. So, she decided, it didn't matter.

As she began the extensive task of licking all the caked-on cum off the Faun's towering cock, she heard an amused chuckle behind her, and seconds later felt slim, powerful fingers dig into her hips. She moaned into the sperm-stained tool in front of her as she felt Korlin's thick, lovely cock dig into her eagerly-dripping pussy. Compared to the recent treatment of her ass, that flexible orifice had been somewhat neglected, and the clearly-aroused Kirin seemed eager to correct that oversight. Pleasure crawling up her spine, she lifted her head briefly to pant for a bit, then dove back down again to lick more bitter-salty cum off the long shaft. She knew with absolute certainty that her beloved Korlin, far from resenting her lightened attitude towards an act that had previously been just for the two of them, would be eager to share a deep, sloppy kiss with her when she was done...

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Despite her progressive attitudes (for the time), it is unlikely that the Beastmaker realized what kind of effect her adoption of the Faun, Silas, as not a Consort but a Concubine, would have on society, and particularly women's place therein. Most likely, it was a spontaneous decision, made in the heat of a moment - or even purely out of lust. Certainly, the chain-reaction it sparked could not have been easily predicted!

Society's upper crust - nobles, old merchant families, great landowners and so on - had been busily paying lip service to the Beastmaker's Empire and Church for years at that point, putting on a show of loyalty and devotion but otherwise sticking to their underlying, conservative beliefs. This included thinking of - and treating - women as political tokens and baby-factories rather than as actual people. As word of the Beastmaker's decision spread, however, many of those women saw their opportunity to shake things up.

They had watched their husbands ape her multicultural Harem by publicly taking on nonhuman mistresses, usually Beastkin. Now, following the Beastmaker's lead and the 'newest fashion', many of them began to adopt male Concubines of their own, preferably drawn from the until-then secret subspecies of the Fauns, with those unable to entice one of those rare creatures to their side settling for some of the more virile Beastkin-tribes, or even a suitably pliable Centaur colt. (Remember to insert reference to Prakarov's book here.)

Their husbands, of course, could not openly complain about or censure this - not without appearing as massive hypocrites, and enemies of the Beastmaker's ever-growing church besides. If they did not want to watch the wives they had ignored and neglected for so long get their needs seen to by some virile, well-equipped young Faun, they thus had no choice but to approach them like equals, bargaining and offering compromises - hardly romantic, but a step in the right direction, and the first real crack in the attitudes of those who had been entrenching themselves in the halls of power since long before the Beastmaker appeared on the scene...

• Segment of_Feminism_ Women's LibWomen's Rights in the Age of the Beastmaker, Doctoral Dissertation, First Draft

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Continued in HYDRA