FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Slip into WoW

Old Friends Anew Updated June 19th, 2010 The dragoness tilted her head curiously as she looked at the arrangement of the two, frowning at her male on the bottom. "Steve? Is this another form you change into?" Steve blinked, taking in his surroundings. A few hours ago he had been ready to hearth after an Ulduar raid in World of Warcraft. Notably at the time he was a player sitting in front of a computer and clicking on his hearthstone to cause his character in-game to travel back to Dalaran instantly. The effects had not been at all what he intended them to be. He recalled ending up in the cave, literally physically in the game itself. He met a dark-grey-furred dragoness who was similarly displaced, but definitely not from earth. He really had no idea what universe she was from, if he thought of it that way. Their mutual confusion had led to his unwitting filling of a spot in a magical draconic ceremony or ritual or something that had bound him to her permanently, but his misunderstanding had caused problems at first, binding her to him, but not binding him to her in return. There was confusion with a game master in the game world, then the oddity of the poor man arriving into the world directly just like Steve had. The misunderstanding between Steve and the dragoness was brought up after that unfortunate individual freed himself, potentially heading back into the real world (which was an odd thing to think, since this world seemed completely real to him right now). After communication of what the ritual actually meant, he had thrown caution to the wind and given himself up fully to her with explosively pleasant results after which they snuggled to rest on the hilltop beneath an odd night sky. His own comfort was quickly interrupted by him literally being tossed into a complete void, the darkness and silence complete except for some fuzzy woman who... well... strangely enough she technically raped him. In the end, she was so sad and pitiful that he couldn't help but feel for her. She hadn't actually hurt him, and there must be some reason for her actions, since she seemed just as lost and panicked as he was in that place. That would have been odd enough, but then the rush of energy like he had felt with Cel was repeated, leaving him feeling dazed. To add to that, he felt Cel tug him back out of the nothingness using her link to him, dropping him back onto the hilltop with the creature from the void still in a passionate embrace with him and a furred dragoness frowning as she looked down on the scene. Her mention of form made him quickly evaluate his own condition, but he was still completely human. A quick bit of information along the link led to his understanding that she had no idea what this creature on him was and thought maybe it was another human. That brought him to the current moment, his head spinning still in reaction. What was this female atop him? What did the second rush of magic in the void mean? Was he about to get gutted for running around on his new mate the very same night they became bonded? And of course, why could he even think that last question comprehensibly, given the absolute insanity of this whole situation? In a growing panic, he lunged and managed to forcefully push the newer female off him, scrambling to his feet and backing away as she stood up. He looked at her, taking in her vulpine appearance and the multitude of tails behind her, feeling drawn to her in the same way he was now drawn to Cel because of the link. He shook his head, trying to clear it as he looked at Cel, who was approaching him, and the panic finally made him snap. "Stay away from me!" he shouted, almost ready to throw a spell at the dragoness, but he couldn't do that. No matter how fearful he was, he couldn't in any way bring himself to hurt her. He cried out again, confused, afraid, feeling cornered, and finally turned and ran away as fast and hard as he could, changing to cheetah form after a few dozen feet to quickly put more distance between himself and the source of his twisted emotions. Cel watched with concern as her male reacted that way. She could feel the confusion, the fear in his thoughts. He was powerful, but his mind was much more fragile than a dragon's. When he turned and ran, she knew she had to let him go for now. She could keep track of him easily, going to him or bringing him to her in a heartbeat if she needed to. Instead, she turned her attention to evaluate the other one who had been with him. The first observation the dragoness made was the fact that this creature looked just as confused and frightened as her male did. Fur covered the whole of her body, though she wore nothing at all. Her ears were very expressive and laid back as she looked around her, backing away from the dragoness slowly. The second observation Cel made was the scent of her male on this female. Combined with the vixen's soaked crotch and their prior position, it was easy to tell what had been going on. This was fine, of course, though normally she would want to approve of anybody mating her male beforehand, it was nothing bad. The third observation, however, was disconcerting. This creature was linked to her male as well. It was the same kind of link: conquest of the male. But he was hers! If another dragon had done this, she would have fought the other to the death, her status of linking to him first making it an almost certain win in her favor. That was why dragons didn't claim the conquest of another. It was almost certain death to do so. But this was not a dragon. She was obviously afraid of Cel in fact, though holding her ground admirably. The vixen showed an obvious urge to go running off after her male as well, which was understandable, given the claim. Cel fought back her own natural urges to rip this interloper limb from limb. Her male might not be strong enough of mind to handle such a thing, since he was not a dragon. He was her first and utmost concern. She sat carefully on the ground, trying to look non-threatening, though she could not get the tip of her tail to stop twitching. "I'm not going to hurt you," Cel told the creature. "Nothing has attacked us on this hill, and I sense nothing else nearby. Let him go for now. We can bring him back or go to him anytime we want to. He is more distressed than you and he needs some time to work that off. Not that you aren't distressed as well, but you seem to be handling it better. I'm Celera, but most non-dragons call me Cel." While she was speaking, she got the information about this creature from Steve, but he didn't know much. So she used her right as the first to claim him to press her way through him into this creature's mind, trying to be as stealthy as possible. Teranda wasn't sure what to make of the whole situation at all. She had experienced much in her lifetime as a Kitsune and the new tail brought with it all that much more knowledge and power, but this was completely beyond her comprehension. Neither her new knowledge nor her entire complement of prior information told her anything about this furred dragon standing before her. She knew that she could still not step to anywhere she was used to stepping to. She sensed some places she could potentially step to, but they were foreign to her, and she was not inclined to go poking around odd places when everything was already this unusual and potentially dangerous. She was thankful for her new tail, but the human confused her. How had his thread ended up through that hole? Why hadn't he spoken to her in that odd place when he so obviously had heard her? Where was she now, and why did she have such a strong urge to go after him? She had a deep certainty that he belonged to her now, though he was not hers alone. This dragon creature had first claim on him. She backed away as she felt a moment of hostility from the dragon, but she could tell the dragon quenched it intentionally. Well, at least the dragon was trying to be congenial. Her name was Cel? "I'm called Tera, Teranda in full. Where are...?" she started to ask, but she felt an odd pressure on her mind from the power that linked her to the human. Instinctively, she pushed back, creating a sensation like two people pushing against each others' hands to keep the other away, until suddenly those hands slipped past each other and both pushes slammed into the other person with force. In this case it was literal, knocking the dragon over backwards and the Kitsune completely off her feet and down the hill a bit to land with a whump. Oh my... the information she got from this. At least some of this made sense now. The energy made sense, though it was almost frightening in its unusualness. The dragoness and her original hostility were understandable. Tera knew Cel's history now and the dragoness knew hers. The world here still made no sense, especially not Cel's impression of Steve's experiences, and the mention of the game just made it all that much more confusing. Of the three of them, she was probably best suited to handle the oddness. After all, long ago she found herself in nothingness, courted by a homely man, giving selflessly and gaining power because of it. This wasn't the first time she was in a confusing and dislocated situation. She just never thought that it was possible for it to happen a second time after she got her tails. Steve was utterly torn. The romp with the dragon was weird enough, but he had been enough in shock from his dislocation into the game world to not question it. He didn't know if he had made some kind of critical mistake. It felt so right, but was that his balls talking, or dragon magic putting it into his head? The sudden fall into nothingness and subsequent interaction with... what was she? She looked like a fox... lots of tails... a kitsune? Where the heck did that come from? Was she one of the Worgen models that didn't exist yet, causing her to be in nothingness? Regardless, that had been just a bit too much. He snapped, which was why he was currently running as fast as he could in travel form, his lithe feline muscles propelling his spotted body quickly through the low, dry grass. He didn't know what to do. He should be at home, sleeping for work tomorrow. Instead he got dumped into the video game and was attached by a literal geis to this dragon and now apparently the kitsune too from the feel of things. Despite all his bravado about not leaving her, he really wasn't ready for this sort of thing. He was a gaming geek, not a hero to women! Not that he had known too many women... even less taking that in the biblical sense. He wanted to escape. He wanted to log out, go to bed, wake up, and have it all be a weird dream. But the geis pushed him to stay, to take care of his females, because they owned him. Owned him?! Yes, that was the feeling he got. He submitted to them, he did not fight them when they took his body. They literally owned him according to the magic. They didn't just own his body either. This wasn't like slavery. They owned his mind. They might even own his soul, if he had such a thing. His whole belief system was put into disarray by this mess, so he really didn't know anymore. There were always stories about people being put into weird situations and being brave and in-control at all times. When he found out he could fling spells and slaughter baddies, he had been brave. He kept the appearance up when he hurt Cel, and when he was being strong for her, and the sex had been to die for. But now the shock of reality was creeping up on him. Well, more like bowled him over and tackled him to the ground. He couldn't keep up with it, and now he was very scared. He was distracted by a strange feeling. A wave of nausea rolled over him. The various spots in the sky that still looked fake faded into normalcy. With a small shock, he realized that he no longer knew his own relative statistics. Health, mana, everything was a mystery to him. He was so busy being distracted by the sky and then the introspection upon the loss of his information feed that he wasn't paying attention at all to where he was going. Running face-first into a huge mass of some creature was probably not in his best interest, especially as the creature snorted and pulled itself to its feet, the others nearby waking as well at the disturbance. He had to think about it for a moment, but he finally recalled. This was a storm lizard! Gah, that meant he was about to get hit by lightning or get stomped on. Great, just great. Now he'd have to kill more stuff. He readied his mind to cast a spell at it, but paused as the creature grumbled at him and flopped back onto its side and ignored him. He stopped and stared at the group of the giant dinosaur-like creatures as all of them put their heads back down and resumed sleeping. What happened here? They didn't go in packs or herds or whatever, and getting too close to one was a sure way to get their ire. They were aggressive mobs after all. But here they were sleeping, all together, and they didn't care that he ran into them. "What's going on?" he muttered to himself, backing away and sitting on his haunches, panting. "The server is gone," a soft voice said behind him. He spun around to confront the new person, but saw nobody there. "You're Mutox, right?" His head lifted at the sound of his character's name. That voice... she sounded familiar... "I am," he said guardedly. There was a blur as something came out of the tall grass at him suddenly, a shadowy, dark-furred shape that bowled him over onto his back and pinned him in a heartbeat. His cheetah form was not well-suited for physical combat at all and he squirmed under the assault, trying to break free as strong forepaws wrapped around him. But the paws were velveted and a strong purr was coming from the creature as it just tried to hold him, not hurt him. A sudden attack of a tongue against his face shocked him enough to make him stop struggling. "It's me, Lanalia!" the creature said. He blinked and peered more closely at the face looking down at him. Framed by the night sky were feline features. He realized that it was much darker at night than he remembered it being in the game, but his feline eyes could see just fine. "Oh, I was afraid I wasn't going to find you when that big dragon flew you away from the cave. I strained my wings trying to keep it in sight, but I couldn't fly as fast. I started combing in the direction you had gone, and I finally found the dragon and some weird fox lady on a hill. Then I found your scent and followed you to here!" she said cheerily, rubbing her cheek against his chin and neck. She peered down at him. "Did you know your clothes are all on the hill back there?" His shock finally wore off enough for him to recognize the other druid, a night elf he had befriended. "Lanalia?" he asked, gawking. She had been out of touch for a month. He thought maybe she got banned for hacking or worse, was a GM and got in trouble for spending time with him, since he had seen her change to flight form often enough in Kalimdor, where it wasn't possible to fly. "What... what are you doing here?" "Well, I had to find you of course," she said cheerily. "Couldn't leave you all alone when you got here." She purred and held him closer. "Don't want to miss out on my handsome cat." He remembered the times they spent together in out of the way places engaging in cross-faction ERP, which was Erotic Role Play, or as some folks called it, kitty cyborz. Of course they couldn't communicate across factions in the game; it all came out to each other as jumbled text, so they used YIM to do their actions and have fun. Then she said she was going to try something, and he didn't see her for a week. When she returned, all of a sudden he could understand her in game, despite that she was still a night elf. He thought maybe she was a GM, though she denied it consistently. She never showed up on the IM client after that though. She cajoled him to finally resume their carnal meetings, but after that she said it wasn't really the same. She started saying how she wished he were really there every time they parted, but she always smiled and /hugged him and wished him a good night. Just three days before she vanished, she started showing off things that shouldn't be possible in the game, like lying on her back in cat form and doing a somersault as an elf. He had no idea where those animations came from, but they were fun. Then one day he got an in-game mail message from her that actually looked handwritten, not like a typed font. "I'm going to try to help my friend Keri. I hope it won't be too much of a shock to you and that you'll enjoy the surprise. See you soon!" He didn't see her after that. That was a month ago. Wait... He peered at her more intently as she smiled down at him, slowly putting hints together in his mind. She stopped IMing him. She did things that shouldn't be possible in the game. "You were in the game after that week you were missing. I mean, actually IN the game, like we are now!" And that mail message... "Did you bring me here!?" he asked, his eyes widening in surprise as his spotted ears laid to the side in concern. She nodded, looking proud of herself. "I did! I tried to use the same way I got here, but I would've needed to've been in the real world for that. So I changed my methods and tried a few more times, and it finally worked." She looked around, worried all of a sudden. "I don't know what happened, but somehow you broke the server. The world acted like the server was still here even when it was obviously off, but only partially here. Players were showing up in the world. Actually here, like you and I are. I ran into a few when I was looking for you. Now the server is just completely gone. I mean, like more gone than normal Tuesday cleanup even." She perked up immediately. "That means you can meet Keri now instead of having to wait for Tuesday!" Then she tilted her head and considered before grinning down at him slyly. "Of course we can make some time for some good kitty play before we go..." she purred, grinding her groin against his. He was about to open his mouth to say something when the soft beat of wings caught both their attentions. She looked back and he craned his neck to peer past her shoulder as large wings bore a relatively small shape down beside them. He recognized Cel instantly, despite the fact that she was a small four on the floor feral dragon rather than humanoid. There was a strange bend in reality and the vixen appeared beside the dragon, carrying a bundle. Both of them stared down at the bewildered cheetah beneath the dark-furred feline, who climbed off him swiftly. "Is it a habit of yours to end up under others," Cel asked as he rolled onto his feet, "or is it just the way your kind work?" He tried to gauge her opinion of this, but she didn't seem upset, just curious. He relaxed a bit. "This is Lanalia. She's from my world, but somehow she got here herself, and she brought me here," Steve said, trying to figure the whole thing out still. If Lanalia brought him here, how did Cel get here, and how did he end up in the dark place and finding this vixen. He looked at Lanalia. "This is Cel and..." He paused and looked upset as he peered at Tera. "Um, I don't know your name... Or even what you are or where you're from. Though I don't know exactly where Cel is from either, but she's from a different place than I come from." "I'm Tera. I'm a Kitsune and I'm from earth, same as you," the vixen said, peering at the other feline druid curiously. "We're actually in the World of Warcraft game? And if you're from earth, how come you're here and fuzzy? And why is HE fuzzy?" she asked, stabbing a finger at Steve. Then she actually dropped down onto her hands, standing on all four appendages, and sniffed at his nose, followed by wandering around him and sniffing at him all over. He shied away just a little, not knowing what to make of this. Lanalia poofed and suddenly became a night elf, then shimmered and became a human. Steve gawked. She couldn't be considered beautiful, but she was in good shape and looked quite decent, dressed in jean shorts and a tee with the horde symbol on it. Wait... She played a night elf. Why was she in a horde shirt? "My real name is Sara," she said. Tera's head shot up at this point, but then the vixen resumed sniffing at the cheetah. "Originally I thought I'd just be in the game for a little while and it would be fun. Turned out the game itself was really taking over this world like a magic force. Maybe others too, because it seems only one server accesses this world. Also turned out I couldn't get back," she said, looking thoughtful. "It wasn't easy to research the problem from this side, but I was having fun while trying to find the answer," she continued. "Since I didn't have anybody to worry about me while I was gone, it didn't matter too much. When the first Tuesday maintenance came around, it started making a lot more sense. Everything changed. I wasn't in just a game. I was in a whole world that the game was linked to. The game changed all the rules of the universe here, but not just being in a fictional creation on earth meant that my escape route didn't exist." Steve's head was swimming already. Cel looked blank. Though she got the gist of it through her ownership of Steve, most of it didn't make any sense to her any more than it did to him. Tera, however, stood back up and peered accusingly at the woman. "You're a witch, aren't you?" Tera asked, her eyes narrowed at the human, all of her tails swinging side to side. Sara frowned slightly. "I prefer to be called a priestess," she said sullenly. "You used true magic and spells on earth?" Tera asked dangerously. Steve took a step back as a small crackle of energy fizzed along those swaying tails. "Ummm..." he said softly, getting a sense that this was not going to be good. Sara shrugged. "Yes, a bit. That's..." She didn't get to finish her words as the Kitsune lashed out with her free hand, bands of energy twisting and curling around the human and lifting her off the ground, then diving into her. Sara was not able to express much of anything as the Kitsune took action. Steve let out a yell and changed back into human form, but as soon as he started forward, the energy let her down carefully and receded. Sara gasped and stared at the vixen. Tara hung her head. "I'm sorry, I had to make sure you didn't use any dark magic. You have absolutely no taint about you. But you have a different kind of magic than I've seen before also." Sara got her wits back about her and smiled a little, looking shaken but unharmed. "Well, I guess if there are more like you on earth, it's a good idea not to dabble. No, but really, I follow the moon. That's why I play a night elf druid even though my main is horde and why I chose this character to come in as." Steve shook his head, trying to clear it. "What the hell is going on?!" he demanded. All three of them turned to look at him as one of the nearby thunder lizards raised its head and snorted, disturbed from its sleep. Tera eyed him appraisingly while Sara blushed and giggled. "Didn't get a good look before, he ran away so fast. You have a good choice in friends, Sara. Or should we call you Lanalia since you've pretty much taken on that identity here?" Sara gulped and smiled. "Call me Lanalia here. I never met him I.R.L. before tonight. Thank you for the compliment though. I think I have to agree. Maybe a bit geeky, but not bad." Steve glared at them. He was still quite lost. Then Tera stepped up to him and pressed her body full length against his as she kissed him. Her free hand slid down his side and then between their bodies to fondle him in an extremely sensitive place before she pressed his clothing against him and broke the kiss, stepping away and leaving him partially-aroused. "You might want to wear those. I don't think anybody here would object to you not doing so, but we might not be the only ones you see," Tera murmured. Steve yelped and unbundled his clothing, grabbing his underwear and stepping one leg into it, but he stopped as the vixen put a hand on his wrist and Lanalia made a sound of disapproval. "You're still soaked and slimy... and quite aromatic down there, hon," Tera murmured. Cel smiled and shifted into her huge dragon form. "I can take care of that!" Tera jumped away as the enormous dragon suddenly lunged at the human, jaws agape, and snapped him up into her mouth. Steve was making another yelp as this was happening, but went silent as the mouth closed around him. Both Tera and Lanalia stared in disbelief as Cel lifted her head and looked introspective, her mouth moving like she was sucking on a gobstopper. Lanalia sidled up next to the vixen and leaned over. "The dragon just..." she started, but didn't finish as Cel dropped her head and spit out a very shaky Steve. He stumbled but her nose caught him and kept him standing, her tail tip snaking to curl around him and hold him upright when he threatened to stumble despite the massive, fuzzy dragon nose. "That was... That was..." Steve mumbled, dazed. "I think he liked it," Tera observed, pointing at his crotch. Lanalia laughed and blushed again. Steve snapped out of it and held his dragon-spit soggy clothing in front of himself. "I don't know if it helped though. Now he's covered in dragon spit," the vixen said. "That's fine. We sell our spit as a commodity on our world to some other races. They bathe in it as a health thing. It gets absorbed and dries really quick though, since it's mostly magic anyway," Cel explained. Steve just glared at her for a moment before putting on his clothes. "Come on," Lanalia said. "Keri will be dying to meet you in person finally." She snagged Steve's hand and tugged him a little ways away as Cel and Tera looked on disapprovingly. Steve blinked, realizing her intent. "Wait, what about them?" Lanalia glanced back at him. "What about them?" "I can't leave them behind." "That's quite true. He's my male," Cel said. She glanced at Tera. "Hers too. That doesn't normally happen, but it happened. So he belongs to us." Lanalia paused and spun around. "You can't just own people. He can do what he likes." Steve felt a tug, similar to what pulled him out of the darkness, and suddenly he was standing beside Cel's head. The dragon's teeth were bared at the human woman, who looked surprised that she no longer had his hand. "He submitted to us, so he is ours. I know it doesn't work that way in your world, but my magic doesn't care about the way your world works. He is my male, and I will protect him with all of my power and my life." Tera moved closer to him, her attitude matching that of the dragon's as her tails began to crackle with power again. Lanalia took a step back. "I'm sorry, I don't want to fight with you, I just don't understand. So you love him?" Cel calmed down a little and the vixen's six tails stopped crackling. "I don't know what your word, 'love' is without looking into his mind, but it's more than that. We are linked by our souls. We give each other power and strength. In my world, there used to be no way to break this bond except for death, but the eaters changed that, consuming the souls of dragons and leaving the other with no bond. If he dies, so do we. We took this upon ourselves when we took him. His pains become ours. We protect him as we protect ourselves, and all three of us gain from it." Cel extended her wing, curling the massive, velveted membrane protectively around the human and Kitsune. "He is our empowerment and our life. He still has free will, but to be able to protect him and share with him, we have some powers over him. No distance can ever keep us apart as long as we are linked, and unless his soul is consumed, nothing can break that link." Lanalia stood digesting this for a moment before her jaw dropped. "Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit..." she muttered, making fists and looking upset with herself. "Fuck, I think this might be my fault." She looked up at Cel. "You're from a completely different world? Not earth? But you're a dragon, right?" Cel nodded, relaxing a little more, unsure of what this creature was thinking. Lanalia thought some more. "Mutox, or Steve, or whatever you'd like to be called... Did you save her from anything? Especially anything dangerous?" "I guess I should go by Mutox here," Steve murmured, having a newfound feeling of awe for just how deep the rabbit hole was growing. "Um, yes, she was trapped in a cave with some low level dragonkin. I panicked when she startled me and I moonfired her. I think it might have killed her if I hadn't healed her, so I guess technically I saved her." He looked chagrinned. "I saved her from my own foolish actions though. I hurt her to begin with." Lanalia's jaw dropped at his wording and she dug into her pocket, pulling out a well-worn piece of paper. She unfolded it and mumbled as she read. "...bring them together... who he helped away from the pain and suffering of foolish actions... and bind them for all eternity in a love greater than love itself." She winced. "Shit." Then she looked confused. "Did you do anything foolish?" she asked Tera. Tera looked embarrassed. "I guess really I did. I found something that I couldn't understand. I should've known that since being a Kitsune gives me knowledge and understanding of everything that something was related to, it was something that was well outside my means to understand. I should have left it alone, but I didn't. I ended up in a place that I could do nothing in. I probably never would've escaped if I hadn't accidentally claimed Ste... Mutox. I could've been stuck in nothingness for all eternity without him." Lanalia squinched her eyes shut. "SHIT. This is all my fault." She dropped to her knees and put her face in her hands, letting the paper fall to the ground. Tera perked an ear at the paper and held out her hand, the paper appearing in it. She looked at the writing on it, her ears laying back as she read. "This is a prophetic spell. Oh good spirits... Your intent was good and your soul is untainted from dark magics, but for the love of all that is good in the world, WHY?!" Lanalia was still crying, but Steve and Cel both looked confused. "What's going on? What's a prosthetic spell?" Steve finally asked her. "Prophetic," she corrected him, still staring at the paper. "It's a spell creating a prophecy that is under geis to occur. It's a type of tampering that is highly dangerous at best and cataclysmic at worst. It feeds highly off the unspoken intent of the caster, so her pureness at least gives us that benefit, but prophecies must be loose in wording, and the magic always seems to have a cosmic and often cruel sense of humor about how it is interpreted." She frowned as she scrutinized the words on the paper, still talking to him distractedly. "Lives of millions have been ruined and nations sundered by prophetic magic in the past, which is why there is a geis against it in our universe. The geis obviously doesn't extend here or she never would have been able to..." Tera stopped as her eyes lighted on something on the paper. Her ears went flat back. "Okay, she's more than right. That explains it. Shit." "What?" Steve asked. She held the paper in front of him and he squinted at it in the near complete darkness. "What is that word there?" she asked. When she realized he couldn't see it in human form, she made a small glow fall on the paper and he stopped squinting. "Looks like it says 'one', but it has a squiggle after it, so I guess it could say 'ones'," he said after examining it for a moment. "Exactly," she said. "The magic obviously decided to see it as 'ones'. Good spirits, this could be bad." She made a face. "Gah, nothing we can do to even try to get a glimpse at the implications of this or foresee all the possible effects." She winced. "Cel, I'm so sorry. If I don't miss my guess, you were brought here by the prophetic magic to facilitate the application of an intentional meta-cosmic misinterpretation of a squiggle." Cel looked more confused but it was Steve who asked, "What are you talking about?" Tera pointed at the paper and showed it to him. "It speaks of one 'him' and 'he', so you've taken that spot. But in trying to define the other party in the prophecy, it has 'ones who he helped away from the pain and suffering'. The word 'ones' is plural, which is why the prophecy could pull me in as well, and used Cel's world's magic to tie, er, to 'bind us for all eternity in a love greater than love itself'. I'm one of the 'ones' you helped away from the pain and suffering of my foolishness." Steve frowned in thought. "Wait... 'ones' and 'them' doesn't explicitly state two or three of us either..." Tera grinned hugely. "Bingo! It's an open-ended plurality. It could mean two of us, or hundreds of us, or even more. Oh, I'm so glad you're smart! I've met so many dumb people in my time as a Kitsune." She hugged him happily. He thought more about it and his face turned ashen. "I'm bound to you two from forced sex. But the prophecy written here doesn't even define the 'ones' as female..." He blanched even worse starting to panic again. "Oh shit this is bad, this is..." Despite his sudden urge to run like a ninny again, his forming panic attack was brought to a halt as a furred dragon tail snaked around him, slipping under his shirt, and the Kitsune kissed him again, arms sliding around him as she pressed close. Both of them sent soothing thoughts down the link to him, trying to calm him down. Cel was better at it, since it was her native magic, but Tera had the direct knowledge behind those thoughts. The combination finally made him relax and melt into the embrace. Tera let him breathe again from the kiss only when she was certain he would listen. "There is one thing you need to know, and this thing you need to hold true to yourself at all times. This is the only thing that will keep us all from going nuts. The prophecy was created by somebody who is unusually pure of soul. If prophetic magics work in this universe the same way they do in ours, then we can only trust that the spell and the prophecy will stay true to the light it was created with. All who are touched by the workings of the spell will benefit, probably very greatly." The vixen smiled at the dragoness. "We need to have faith. All of us. Everything should turn out fine in the long run, even if some parts don't seem as good along the route." Steve nodded numbly. "So I should learn how the things work, so I can make sure nothing too bad hap..." He yelped as Tera grabbed his shoulders and spun him swiftly. She was so serious she even pricked him slightly with her claws, making all three of them wince as one. "Don't try to bend it to your own will. No matter what your intent, it will play its own game," she advised him with the utmost seriousness. "It's probably even better that you don't know more details of the magic. It might change what you thought you were going to do." She paused, looking concerned. "In fact, even knowing about the prophecy may make us try to change what we would otherwise do and make a bigger muddle than it could otherwise be," she murmured. Steve started to open his mouth to ask something, but he felt a tingle along his body, like static electricity from Tera, and reality twisted around all four of them. * * * Tera had rarely questioned her job as a Kitsune, but there were some parts she liked less than others. What she just did was one of those parts. She had been worried that she would fail, but her twist of their minds had worked just fine. The paper crumbled to ash in her hand. Both humans and the dragon no longer remembered the prophecy. Most of the events of the recent past were changed or deleted, with a few mindsets and attitudes modified as well. Poor Steve was utterly frazzled by all of this, she could tell. Her actions with him in the darkness had only added to it. She did what she could to help him be less frazzled and more confident and courageous. Given that the magic seemed to apparently only work with sex, and because of the inhibitions that frazzled him before, she tweaked those to make him more open to company. A similar change to Cel so she wouldn't be upset about his actions with others. They both could still protect him with no problem. Really, though, it was her own selfish motives there. She had been without any good male fun for decades. She left the human woman knowing that it was her fault they were here, but not the details of why. It would be hard to explain the current crying otherwise. Then when all the work was done, she wiped her own memory of the prophecy. * * * Steve definitely had a brain fart. He was going to say something, but his words completely slipped his mind. He let out a sigh and smiled at Tera and then at Cel. "I'm sorry I was so panicky before. I should be okay now." He looked over at the weeping woman. "Hey... Do you mind if I have some time alone with her? She was a wonderful friend on the server and a great person from what I knew. She got stuck here same as us. I don't want to leave her feeling this miserable." Cel peered at him and smiled a little. "She liked you and you liked her from the smell of things when we found you. You two should spend some quality time like that. Just don't be submitting or allow her to claim you, okay?" Steve jumped, but smiled at Cel. "You really want me to do that?" Cel nodded. "We share things, remember? When you're happy, we're happy too." Steve jumped as the tail that had snaked under his shirt slipped into his pants instead, but he groaned in pleasure a moment later. "Okay, okay, stop that, I get the hint," he murmured, batting at the tail. She grinned and her tail let him go as Tera stepped back away. "Shall we take a night flight to look around?" Cel asked the Kitsune. Tera nodded and climbed onto the dragoness's back and they took off silently. Steve changed to cat form, padding quietly up to the distraught human until he nuzzled her and made her jump as she became aware of her surroundings again. "Oh, I'm so sorry for getting you stuck here too," she said, but he found her lips with his huge maw and shut her up in short order, though the kiss was somewhat awkward. "I don't know, it's all turned out to be good so far. Scary sometimes, but I guess everything new is somewhat scary. Let's make the best of it while we can," he purred. "Where did your... owners or mates, what do you call them... go?" she asked, looking around. "They are both, I guess. Or even masters. They left so I could spend some quality time with you to help you feel better," he said. "They're okay with us... doing stuff?" she asked, blushing a little. He nodded. "I guess they like it when I'm happy because it affects them too." She stood up and changed to cat form, rubbing full length along him sensually, but then she stopped as she heard a snort from the nearby storm lizards. The sky was starting to show a tinge of light at the horizon and the huge beasts were waking up and starting to move around. "We should probably find somewhere that we're less-likely to be stepped on," she said, changing to her avian form. He blinked. "We can't fly in... wait..." He took hold with his mind and sure enough he was able to change to his own bird form. "Oh, neat!" He realized that he was standing on the ground, not flapping about just above the ground, but that would be somewhat silly outside the confines of a game anyway. "Lead the way. You know the area better without the server here than I do." She nodded and took off, flying toward the rising western sun. He took flight after her, taking only a few seconds to get used to and start to love the exhilarating sensation. Soon, like the dragoness and Kitsune, they were only a speck in the sky. * * * Nearby, one of the storm lizards grunted, startled as a shadowy form suddenly appeared beside it. The lizard didn't like the feel of this creature and snorted a warning. "Oh, hush, you stupid beast," the creature said, gesturing with barely a thought. The poor storm lizard let out a wail and exploded from the inside, causing immediate panic in the rest of the herd. They were gone, stampeding off quickly and leaving the shadowy figure to wipe a small splatter of storm lizard off his robe. "So they are the ones who freed us from the server," the creature muttered. "Hmm. Most fortuitous. Though I gather that if they leave back to their world, the server may return. We can't have that now, can we? I shall have to arrange for at least one of their bodies to stay behind then. But that prophecy they spoke of... And the link the dragon talked about... I need to think on this. We may be able to use this to even more of an advantage." Just behind him, a voice slipped out from nowhere, deceptively soft and deep, and yet sinister at the same time. "I agrrreeeee. Everrry advantage to ussss." The shadowed creature pulled a small scrying crystal from beneath his robe and cast upon it swiftly, tuning it to the recently-departed druids. When he was satisfied that it would track them, he turned. The place where the other voice had come from slowly erupted into a sinister portal which the figure stepped through. The portal closed behind, leaving only the stained smear and chunks of the elephant-sized storm lizard behind as evidence that he had ever been there. * * * Liked the story? [Click here to send the author a tip!](%5C)

Kit invests a lot to create a story you enjoy. More tips simply mean more stories.