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Melora's Journey

The lands of the Horse-People were known to some as the Green Desert, and not just for its appearance - that of a vast, open plain of low hills and shallow dales, where the wind blew all but unimpeded across the endless, contiguous green surface - nor simply for its general shortage of rainfall. The unique strain of grass that covered it was tough, rough, and capable of surviving on very little moisture - along with also possessing very little nutritional value. The reason for the name, thus, was as a reminder for any traveler or merchant moving through the area to prepare as if they were crossing a desert - bringing both water aplenty and fodder for animals. Horses could not digest the rough grasses at all, while even the ruminants who_could_, such as oxen, derived very little energy from them - often winding up dying from starvation with their bellies full to bursting.

Only around the great, spring-fed lake at the center of the plains - an oasis in the midst of this Green Desert - could life flourish. There, the hardy horse-people had cleared large areas of the rough grass through back-breaking labor, irrigating these fields with water drawn from the lake, and growing edible crops - from bountiful orchards of fruit to great, swaying fields of grain. Even so, it was a hard place to live, though on the balance not without its advantages. Notably, with hardly any creature capable of living off the grasses that dominated the region, the local ecosystem was shallow in the extreme - largely limited to worms, burrowers, insects and birds. There were no large predators, because there was nothing for them to eat.

Having grown up in such a place, it was thus no surprise that Melora's eyes were wide as tea-cups, her pulse pounding a million miles a minute from the ancient, primal fear that was flowing through her body from her flared nostrils as they breathed in the scent of the beast. It had thrown itself at her, and only through luck had she managed to interpose her father's spear before it reached her flesh. Even now, with the spear-point buried deep in its chest, it growled and snarled - claws flashing as it tried to struggle towards her. But its own desperate charge had done what her young arms could not - driving the spear in deep. Its life-blood was ebbing away, running down the haft, and a minute later, the snarling beast grew still, the hungry light in its eyes fading.

Only then - or rather, a couple of minutes later - did her heartbeat begin to slow, and the panicked paralysis faded from her muscles. And only once she'd managed to regain her breath and - with some difficulty - pull her spear out of the beast's breastbone, did she manage to see it as anything other than a terrifying mass of fur, fangs and snarling, baying hunger. Now that it was dead, in fact, it seemed rather... pathetic. An old wolf, bedraggled and flea-bitten, abandoned by his pack for whatever reason, struggling to survive in these harsh mountains by himself. His ribs stood out starkly against his blood-soaked fur. Starvation had driven him to such desperation that he'd taken the gamble of attacking two-legged prey, despite the risks - and in the end, it hadn't paid off.

As she cleaned off her spear best she could, Melora couldn't help but feel some empathy for her fallen foe. A pack-hunter without a pack, alone in the mountains, fighting to survive... not too different from her, really. She'd abandoned her tribe and the lands she'd called home until now on what her mother would no doubt have called a silly, girlish whim that she ought have outgrown by now, had she actually_told_ her about her plans before stealing the spear and a backpack full of supplies, and sneaking out of the village.

The world beyond the lands of the horse-people were dangerous - this she had been told often enough! There were deadly beasts there, and monsters too - as well as evil, greedy and vicious men. At least back home, the only thing that was ever likely to threaten you was another horse-man, and the occasional tribal warfare followed a strict and ancient code of honor that left noncombatants largely unscathed. Well... she'd met the deadly beasts now, or at least their vanguard, and she was still alive. That was good. Now she just needed to watch out for monsters and evil men, as she continued her search for something she hadn't the foggiest idea of how to find.

The Black Dragon. She'd never even heard of such a creature, until she stumbled upon him resting in a dell. Dragons, yes, she'd heard tales - fearsome ones - of dragons clad in gleaming scales of red or green, silver or gold... but however little foundation she had for this belief, she knew in her heart that the Black Dragon was more than just another random variant. He was special. His presence, his radiant aura of sheer power and unyielding dominance - it had taken her breath away, even amidst her terror. Surely, he had to be something unique, something apart from the regular, boring old dragons of the old mare's tales.

But how - how?! - could she find him again? He had disappeared, flying away on silent wings, while she slumbered, exhausted from the most overwhelmingly intense experience of her young life. He had haunted her dreams, then and ever since, but he had not returned - nor did it seem likely that he ever would. The rumors of a treasured trophy going missing from Eclipse's tribe at the same time she'd encountered the Black Dragon suggested that_this_ was what had brought him to the lands of the horse-people, after all, so what reason could he possibly have for returning?

Thus, she was left knowing only one thing: If she stayed in her little village, she would never see him again. Maybe she'd eventually marry some suitable lad - probably Tallian, who seemed to still be sweet on her, despite the awkwardness of their first encounter and her subsequent 'despoilment' at the claws of the invading dragon, not that she'd told anyone the full truth of what had transpired when she encountered him. Maybe she'd wind up with a foal, or two, or three, growing old and gray and eventually passing on sage advice to her children about welcoming the safe and familiar and not getting carried away by flights of fancy.

But she'd refused that path, that future. She'd left - and now here she was, in that ever-so-dreaded 'outside world', pursuing her quixotic quest. She'd survived her meeting with the wolf, and based on the vague directions she'd been able to divine from the overheard chatter of a group of traveling merchants some time ago, a decent-sized human city waited beyond these mountains. Evil or not, humans obviously traveled widely and weren't too bothered by the dangers - surely, she could learn a thing or two from them. Surely, they would have something to tell her about the Black Dragon...

"Well, ain't you a pretty little filly..." the man slurred as he leered down at her. "Don't think I've ever seen a gal like you before..." His scent told a comprehensive story - the smell of the stables, mixed with the reek of wine and other, stronger spirits. The obvious conclusion was that he was a farrier or stablemaster who'd just gotten paid and - after blowing half his wage on drink - decided to blow the other half at the brothel. Hardly surprising - business always picked up tremendously at month's end.

"Indeed?" She replied with what she hoped was a suitably seductive smile. "Would you like to see a bit more of me?" She leaned forwards as she spoke, flashing him a fine view down her cleavage - enhanced as it was by the tight, rose-red bustier she wore. Not that her tits needed much enhancement, as the brothel-madam had pithily stated the first time she'd strapped Melora into the built-in corset - by human standards, she was _remarkably_well-endowed, boasting the second-biggest set in the brothel.

Reaching down, the drunkard tipped the small cameo that swung from her choker and squinted at its black surface, before grinning broadly. "I might, filly... I might..." Then he staggered towards the counter where the madam was waiting expectantly, already counting the money in her head. Melora sighed once she was sure he was out of earshot and let her eyes pan across the room as she waited for her first customer of the night to return. It was an eye-catchingly varied sight that met her eyes. Madame Boucoup's House of Worldly Pleasures wasn't the biggest brothel in the city, but it was probably the most profitable thanks to the special niche it occupied.

The other brothels were staffed almost exclusively with humans - with maybe a few half-elves and halflings mixed in, if they didn't look_too_ foreign. It was a human city, after all! But Madame Boucoup actively recruited the outliers - she had humans on staff too, sure, including a few that stood a bit outside the regular beauty-standards in one direction or another, but most of her employees were wholly or partially nonhuman. Stocky dwarven women with long braids, slender elven maidens, a couple of muscular, green-skinned half-orcs whose protruding fangs only made them more attractive to a certain kind of patron... the list went on, and also included one Melora, maiden of the distant and exotic Horse-People.

When she'd first reached a human city, she'd been in for a rough awakening. She'd more or less expected the sneering disdain many of them seemed to feel for non-humans, but the money had been the real surprise. Back home, everything had been handled with bartering - the only people who had 'money' were those who dealt with traveling, usually human, traders. But in a human city, people literally wouldn't give you the time of day if you had no money. She'd needed to earn some, but her skills were limited to say the least. What did she know how to do? Pick berries, sow fields, pull up weeds... theoretically, she could have found work as a day-laborer at one of the farms that always surrounded human cities, but she quickly learned that disdainful though the burghers were, it was nothing compared to the barely-concealed hostility of the farmers - who seemed to view anything strange, different or out of the ordinary as a direct threat to their livelihoods.

But she did know one other thing - how to spread her legs. And the occasional leers and catcalls she received soon made her realize that her kind wasn't unattractive to human eyes - however skinny and unimpressive they looked to her. Thus, she now found herself with gainful and profitable employment at Madame Boucoup's, part of her famed menagerie of sexual specialties, which drew in patrons from far and wide along with those parts of the local population who'd managed to get bored with the garden-variety whores.

The man returned, his purse lighter - but the bulge on the front of his wine-stained trousers seemed to be doing its best to compensate. "C'mon, little fillie..." he grinned. "We're going up to the special room, you'n'I..." She nodded graciously and rose from the elegant chaise-lounge she'd been reclining in. "Your patronage is appreciated, good sir... please, follow me." She churned out the well-practiced phrase as she gestured towards the winding stairs and began walking the equally familiar route.

The 'escorts' of Madame Boucoup's each wore a choker with a decorative cameo - available in three splendid colors: Pure white, erotic red, and perverted black. The colors denoted the services they were willing to perform, allowing the discerning customer to sort them at a glance. Those who wore the white were available only for the basics - vaginal and oral intercourse, no rough stuff, extras available at_their_ discretion. Those who wore red had a broader portfolio - they were up for anal, rough sex, more exotic games, dirty talking, all the usual trimmings. A standard selection of extras were available for those willing to throw in a few more coppers. The few who wore black, meanwhile... they were up for anything, with the basic rule simply being 'no permanent marks or injuries'. For a small, extra charge they could be taken to the 'special playroom', where various tools, toys and utensils could be used to enhance the experience.

It amused Melora somewhat that out of these three groups, those who wore the red cameos were both the most numerous and paid the least. Mostly because the ones who wore white were beautiful, exotic goods who commanded a good price just by being there, such as the full-blooded elves and the Elohim-woman - hence, they could still earn a good keep despite only providing basic services. Of course, the rest were theoretically free to wear white too... assuming they didn't mind starving. Melora, though, had picked the black without much hesitation - not only did it seem quite appropriate, considering her quest, but it also qualified as 'easy money' in her eyes. All she really had to do was act as if they were actually_hurting_ her, and there was extra silver in her purse at the end of the week.

Indeed, this arrangement was rather more satisfying than what she'd found herself stuck with in the previous, more 'ordinary' brothels she'd started her career as a prostitute in. In those, she'd learned how to fake pleasure out of necessity, and also gradually realized that her lack of enjoyment in the acts she was paid for wasn't _just_down to the unimpressive equipment of her human customers. Those encounters created a baseline that she could use to compare her first sexual experience - one of frustration more than anything else, when Tallion had ineptly taken her virginity - with the brutal intensity of her life-changing encounter with the Black Dragon. She'd thus been forced to realize that pain and humiliation brought her more pleasure than a gentle touch... so, even if no mere human could hope to measure up to the absolute domination that the Black Dragon had provided, every so often one of the rough types attracted by her black cameo actually managed to get her off!

Not that this particular client seemed likely to fall into that category. Considering the way he struggled to keep his balance, she'd be surprised if he could handle his own dick, much less a whip, with any sort of competence. Ah well. Another chance to practice her best 'pained moans', presumably. Still, once they entered the 'playroom', he seemed to perk up some, and his eyes showed some renewed focus. Well, it did tend to wow customers somewhat the first time they took a girl there. The other rooms basically had a bed, some rudimentary bathing-facilities for afterwards, and that was it. This one, though...

Well, it did have a nice, big bed - with manacles already hanging from each of its four posts, ready to be slapped around a convenient limb. But there was also a leather-padded wooden horse, a set of stocks, and several sets of wrist-irons dangling freely from both the wall and the ceiling. And then there was the row of whips, crops, paddles and the like that hung in a row along the wall, and the selection of smaller implements lined up on a dresser - clamps and tiny spikes, nipple-screws and chains, along with some small weights that could be attached to various of the above...

Lots of things to tease the sadistic imagination... but as Melora stepped over to the bed and started to undo her bustier, her client made a beeline for the exact same implement that nearly ever patron who took her to the playroom did - the riding-crop. It wasn't as if she couldn't understand the reason, it was just so... obvious. And yet, each and every one of them acted as if they'd just made some kind of brilliant leap of sexy logic. Sigh. Well, whatever. If he worked with horses daily, as she had surmised from his smell, it was just possible that he'd be familiar enough with the crop to handle it decently even while drunk.

The pleated skirt followed the bustier, and both were swiftly folded and deposited on a nearby chair - leaving her standing there dressed only in the silken choker and the frilly, bright-red panties Madam Boucoup had provided her with as part of her 'uniform' when the client approached. "Where would you like me, sir?" She asked politely - a rather more pertinent question in this room than in the regular ones, not that there wasn't the occasional demand for against-the-wall or down-on-the-floor sex in those.

It seemed to take him a few moments to parse the question, during which his eyes roamed freely up and down her exposed body - or as exposed as she got, what with most of her skin being covered in a light-brown coat. "Get into that thing... yeah, that'll work..." he slurred, throwing a thumb towards the stocks. They were rather nicer than the ones found in the market square - the wood was polished and oiled, instead of splintery and moldy, and the gaps were lined with soft leather. It also didn't have a lock, just a latch - which was, however, quite unreachable when you were stuck in it, as she knew firsthand.

"Certainly, sir. Would you like me to remove my underwear first, or would you prefer to do so yourself?" She asked as she stepped towards it, swaying her hips just as she'd been taught. It actually varied a lot - some liked to watch her strip, some enjoyed leaving the silky little things on while just pulling them aside as needed, and some liked to tear them right off her body. They were flimsy enough for it, certainly, and it was all included in the price - Madam Boucoup bought them in bulk, and the 'silk' was actually a cheaper fabric that any true, high-class tailor would have sniffed disdainfully at. Regardless, this particular client just laughed. "Throw 'em aside, li'l filly! Horses don't wear panties!" Obediently, she pulled them off, bending at the waist to do so while lifting her tail, thus giving her client a nice, full view of her pussy and ass. The frilly little things were then quickly deposited on top of the rest of her clothes, and then there was nothing left but to deposit herself in the stocks, placing her neck and wrists in the designated slots while her client closed the top half over them and latched it in place.

The feeling of helplessness sent a thrill down her spine, and moisture began to form in her until then bone-dry pussy. The client, meanwhile, laughed and leered at her rear end, running his hands up and down her legs, roughly caressing her buttocks and flanks. "Yeah, this is perfect... just perfect..." he muttered. "Hafta look after all those bloody horses all day, all week, all bloody_year_, while they stomp on my feet, kick me in the hip, bite the literal godsdamned hand that feeds them! Best fodder money can buy, too, while I live on gruel and wilted vegetables!" Probably because he was spending most of his salary on alcohol and women of negotiable virtue like herself, Melora reflected as she waited for him to finish working himself up to get started. "...but heavens forfend that I show those beastly critters who's boss! Mustn't damage the goods, after all! Devils take them!" He spat, and Melora felt a renewed thrill. There was a venomous hatred there, burning through the alcohol-fogs - and apparently, he was planning to take it out on her...

The riding-crop came down on her right buttock with sudden swiftness, cracking loudly across the subtle flesh and making her gasp - more from surprise than pain, though admittedly, it did seem like he had a good arm on him. Dozens of more blows followed, raining down on her ass and flanks alike - full-forced swings all, with all his pent-up frustrations behind them. She felt the heat begin to build up in her loins as the pain mounted, and had to remind herself to give her moans a suitably pained twist - for some reason, the men who took her to the playroom rarely wanted her to enjoy herself.

The crop fell silent, and moments later, cruel fingers dug into the freshly tenderized flesh as the man gripped her buttocks from behind. She could hear him mumbling something about "Bloody slutty mares, mincing about...", presumably to himself - then she felt something hot prodding at her by-then thoroughly moistened labia. Apparently, she'd underestimated him - perhaps he was just one of those habitual drunks who'd spent so much time in that state that he'd learned to cope. Certainly, he proved able enough to handle his cock just as well as he'd handled the crop...

He buried himself to the root in one powerful thrust, his hips slamming forcefully into her sore ass. He was better hung than most humans she'd encountered, she judged as she did her best to tighten up for him - using the exercises she'd been taught by some of the other girls she'd worked with. It didn't work terribly well - her body was just built for something significantly larger. Still, for now, he didn't seem to mind much - pumping merrily away at her pussy while continuing to dig his fingers harshly into her hips. It wasn't doing much for her... in fact, the arousal that his earlier whip-work had awakened in her was rapidly dying away again.

Fortunately, as it turned out, he hadn't thrown the riding crop particularly far away. One of the hands digging into her ass-cheeks disappeared, and a few seconds later, the blows began to rain down again - this time on her back, shoulders, and the sides of her swaying breasts. Displaying a remarkable capacity for multi-tasking, the man was drunkenly thrusting his hips, wielding the crop, and muttering complaints about how loose she was. From what snippets she could actually hear over the sounds of the other two activities, it sounded like he was comparing the experience to 'fucking a wet rag', or something of that sort, though this did not appear to actually deter him from carrying on with it.

Nor did it stop him from eventually reaching his climax, spraying a decent - for a human - load into the deeper depths of her pussy. Some of it might even reach her womb, several inches further inside - but even then, it wouldn't find much joy in its quest to impregnate her. Contraceptive potions as well as potions of resist disease were made available to all the residents of Madam Boucoup's House of Worldly Pleasures... with your consumption coming out of your weekly pay. And even though no-one seemed to know for certain whether she could be knocked up by a human, she wasn't about to risk it - especially considering humankind's proven track-record when it came to spawning half-breeds.

As the slapping of both flesh against flesh and riding-crop against flesh grew still, the customer's drunken grousing became easier to hear. "Guess you'd really need to be hung like a horse to find much joy there..." he was currently complaining as he pulled out, and Melora quickly piped in - conscious of the need to maintain her reputation for high-quality 'customer service' - "Excuse me, sir, but on that subject, many have found my _mouth_to be particularly suitable for their needs..." Grunting, he followed her advice, stepping around the stocks to present his still semi-hard cock to her, shining wetly from her juices and with slimy patches of cum still lingering around the edges of his wrinkly foreskin. "I'll just judge that for meself, I think..." he said with a slight slur.

As he grabbed her head and thrust the messy rod towards her mouth, she quickly went to work - applying her lips and tongue to the project, and soon feeling it go from semi-hard to all-the-way hard inside the moist warmth of her mouth. She hadn't been lying about the general estimation of her skills in that department, either - though she had fairly little experience in the oral arts, her tongue seemed to make up for a lot of that. It was wider, longer, thinner and softer than a human one, enabling her to practically wrap it around the customer's shaft.

On the one occasion where she'd been picked up by one of the vanishingly rare female patrons that occasionally visited the brothel, her ability to switch directly from covering the entire outer labia with her tongue, to rolling it up and pushing it several inches inside, had impressed the client enough that she'd never guessed this was Melora's first-ever attempt at cunnilingus. But then, that was the entire selling-point of Madam Boucoup's, wasn't it? A chance to sample the unique sexual skills of nonhumans...

Certainly,this customer wasn't complaining anymore - just groaning and flexing his hips as he gripped her skull painfully tight. Her muzzle was just long enough to ensure that even when he was pushing it in to the root, burying her nose in his sweat-scented crotch-hair, he wasn't blocking her throat - good thing too, considering that he didn't seem particularly cognizant of avoiding such a scenario. Some of the other girls had wound up throwing up or even passing out due to customers riding their faces relentlessly, with no thought for their need to breathe, and she knew that they rather envied the way her muzzle secured her against this fate while dealing with all but the most uncomfortably well-equipped men.

After laboring away with her tongue and lips for some five minutes, feeling the arousal that had built up in her loins during the earlier round of whipping fade steadily away, she was rewarded with a small squirt of bitter cum. Considering her past experiences with a young colt of her own tribe and a fully-grown dragon, she'd always thought that the quantity human men could produce in this regard was downright sad, but needless to say, she'd never felt any need to _tell_her customers so. Instead, she just caught it on her tongue - and when the client released her head and stumbled back to regain his breath, she flashed him her best bedroom-eyes as she opened her mouth to show him his load covering her tongue, before visibly swallowing it. Never failed to impress, in her experience.

"That was fun..." the customer drawled once he'd regained his breath. "But I can do one better. C'mere, get outta that thing..." unlatching the stocks, he threw them open and pulled her out of them, before shoving her towards the bed. "Get down on it... sideways, on your back, with your head hangin' over the side!" Obediently, she followed his directions, despite internally rolling her eyes at his obvious intentions. That kind of position was ideal for a proper 'throat-fuck', sure, but considering her aforementioned muzzle, he wasn't going to get any deeper inside her mouth from _that_position than he had while she was in the stocks. But hey, the customer got what the customer wanted...

She felt extra grateful for her muzzle when he fastened the bedpost-manacles to her wrists, keeping her arms widely spread - and thus preventing her from attempting to push him away if he rode her face too hard or too long. Her mane reached nearly to the floor when she lay like this, and her open mouth was certainly well-positioned as a usable fuckhole as he knelt in front of it and rubbed his still-hard cock with a gleeful expression on his face. A few seconds later, he was once again balls-deep in her mouth, while said balls rested fragrantly against her nostrils. In truth, this position did give him a tiny bit more penetration - enough to tickle the back of her palate, but not quite block her airways - and perhaps more appealingly to him, it let him grip her bared throat as he began to ride her.

While doing her best to once again provide him with a satisfying oral experience, she invitingly spread her thighs, exposing her pink pussy to his eyes, hoping that he might take the hint. She knew that he'd brought the riding-crop with him when he approached the bed, so maybe... well, if nothing else, he soon grew tired of gripping her throat, probably because it forced him to realize that he was by no means entering it. Leaning over her a bit more, pounding her face with short, powerful thrusts, he began to squeeze and pinch her breasts, sinking his fingers painfully into the pliable tissue.

This discomfort, along with the sensation of being so helplessly restrained and used, brought the flagging arousal back to her loins - and soon, her labia were glistening again. Perhaps it was this sheen that drew the customer's eyes there, to that patch of pink between her legs - but either way, she knew he'd taken the bait when he giggled somewhere above her and one of the hands molesting her tits disappeared. Sure enough, the riding crop soon fell mercilessly on her exposed pussy, slapping wetly into her labia and sending delightful shocks of pain through her body. As her arousal rose, her clit began to peek out from under its thick hood - putting _it_directly in the path of the descending instrument as well...

One, twice, thrice the crop found its mark, more likely by chance than any deliberate aim. Each impact sent a shock of pain radiating out from the sensitive nub, and by the third, she finally came. Fortunately, the cock in her mouth effectively blocked her moans of pleasure, and its owner obviously took the reflexive closing of her legs as all her muscles pulled together at once to be a pain-reaction. "That'll show ya for flashing that pink at me all the time, you slutty mare..." he slurred drunkenly, making her wonder - through the orgasmic haze - whether he was actually addressing her or working off some issues with regards to his dayjob.

Regardless, he apparently liked what he saw and enjoyed the continued caress of her tongue, because soon after he climaxed again - delivering an even more anemic load directly down her throat. As he leaned heavily over her, getting his breath back, his cock rapidly shriveled back to its dormant state inside her mouth - clearly spent after three relatively rapid rounds. "Bloody hell I need a piss..." he mumbled to himself as he straightened up again. With her head still stuck between his legs, sucking gently on the soft, rubbery thing that lingered in her mouth, she couldn't see what was happening above - but she could easily imagine him looking around for the chamber-pot, only to then pause as a cruel smile spread across his face.

"Oh yeah... anythin' goes with you black-marked gals, right?" he asked, presumably not expecting an answer, considering her current disposition. His hands shifted to her tits once more, and using them as handholds, he pushed his groin forwards once again - mashing it into her face as, inevitably, he began to pee. She gagged as the hot, sour liquid poured down her throat, splashing across her tongue, and struggled to swallow it despite her immediate revulsion. He was right, though - wearing the black cameo meant that you no more got to say 'No, that's too disgusting' than 'No, that's too painful', and she was simply grateful that most of her customers tended to be too eager to hurt her to bother with literally adding insult to injury.

Still, she'd been working here for a few months by now, and this wasn't the first time it had occurred to one of her customers to use her mouth for a chamber-pot. So she managed to struggle through it, pulling ineffectually at her restraints as she instinctively fought to push him away - swallowing the remains of the drinking-binge that had preceded his visit to Madame Boucoup's. And at least _this_time, she didn't throw up, despite certainly feeling the gorge rising in her throat. In the end, his bladder emptied as his balls had before, leaving him to sigh with contentment...

Despite clearly enjoying her humiliation, however, it was obvious that his dick wasn't about to rise for a round for, and with a disappointed grunt, he stepped back and pulled his shrunken, saliva-covered cock out of her mouth. Despite being so thoroughly spent, however, was apparently still determined to get his money's worth, and after spending a minute or so looking around the room and mumbling to himself, he pulled her out of her shackles once more.

"A horse on a horse... that'll be a sight!" he giggled as he shoved her towards the wooden horse - yet another obvious joke on her equine nature that many had made before. As torture implements went, this one wasn't nearly as nasty as the ones used by the crueler lords and kings around the world to 'discipline' disobedient peasants - the upper half of it was sheathed in leather, reducing the sharp edge to something tolerable, as she'd been given the opportunity to discover on a number of occasions. Its low construction also precluded the use of the kind of ankle-weights that might otherwise have been used to worsen the effect - indeed, for someone as tall as Melora, it was quite possible to touch the ground on both sides with her toes while sitting on it.

Of course, that was why attachment-points with manacles dangling from them were provided at both ends - a point not lost on her client, who after positioning her astride it wasted no time lifting up her ankles and locking them into place. With her knees thus forcibly bent, most of her body-weight was resting painfully on that thin strip of leather-covered wood, and her wrists were soon attached to the same point - leaving her arms stretched out behind her, where she couldn't use them to take some of the weight.

Nor was he done with just that. Rummaging around in the various toys piled on the dresser, he shortly returned with two cruelly-teethed nipple-clamps and a ballgag big enough to fit her muzzle. Those gags were a bit of a point of contention between the girls and Madam Boucoup, she knew. Several who might otherwise have been willing to wear the black cameos refused to on account of this also giving their customers the option of gagging them at will. The rooms - particularly the playroom - were well insulated, but not so much that a sufficiently emphatic scream might not be heard, providing a last-ditch failsafe if the client crossed a line. A failsafe that was lost once the gag was locked in place between your teeth... and the fact that the patron would eventually be in deep shit if he crossed a line at that point would be a remarkably cold comfort to the victim.

Madam Boucoup, however, was insistent. The kind of men who were willing to pay for access to the playroom tended to enjoy having _power_over the ladies they'd hired for the night - and being able to silence their cries was part of that. Melora personally didn't mind much - being gagged meant that she didn't have to work so hard on faking cries of pain, after all, and in this case there was an added bonus. Her mouth still tasted like the inside of a chamber-pot, for obvious reasons, and the ball of varnished wood that was now shoved inside it gave her something else to taste.

Once the gag was in place and the clamps had been attached to her nipples, the tiny metal teeth biting mercilessly into the hard little nubs, he stepped back as if to admire his handiwork. "What else, what else..." he muttered and stepped over to the wall where the various whips and paddles hung - but as he did so, his legs seemed to buckle slightly and he had to support himself with a hand against the wall. Yawning, he scratched his unshaven cheek and glanced over at the bed. "Mebbe I'll just have a sit-down while I think about what kinda' horse-whip to use..." he mumbled, and staggered over there.

Melora could see it coming from a mile off, but it wasn't as if there was much she could do about it. Once he'd sat down on the edge of the bed, he spent a minute or two peering bleary-eyed at the whip-selection, before teetering backwards and falling flat on the bed. Seconds later, he was snoring. The hot-blooded lustiness that had kept him going so far, despite the quantity of strong drink he'd so clearly consumed, had worn itself out over the course of those three orgasms, leaving him dead on his feet with exhaustion.

Groaning through the gag, she tried to readjust her groin in a less painful way - knowing full well that whatever part of her taint she tried to rest her weight on would wind up hurting just as badly as the rest within minutes. There wasn't any hidden catches or whatnot on the manacles - some of the girls had tried lobbying for it, but those kinds of trick-cuffs were more expensive than the plain old kind, and Madam Boucoup knew just how to pinch every copper until it squeaked. And, for that matter, how to squeeze every patron for every last silver in their purses... which was why nobody was going to come rescue her until the next morning.

Patrons paid by the hour, after all. Even now, the hourglass by the door was working its way through the last ten minutes worth of sand - presumably the reason why the man now snoring on the bed had decided to try and set up some kind of perverse tableau instead of calling it a night. And the rules were clear - written out in detail at the brothel's entrance: If you went past the hour, you paid for the next one. And the next one. And the next one. Did you want to spend the night at Madam Boucoup's, in the warm embrace of one of the many beautiful and exotic ladies there on offer? That was _perfectly_fine, just so long as you were prepared for the size of the bill that would meet you the next morning.

Hence, as a matter of policy, clients were never to be disturbed, regardless of how long they'd been in the rooms they'd paid for - and were only to be ousted when the brothel closed down in the early hours of the morning. Which meant that poor Melora was in for an uncomfortable night... but also, conversely, that she'd definitely make her quota for the week. And of course, the drunken sod on the bed would almost certainly find himself saddled with a significant pile of debt, which he'd have to work quite hard to pay off if he didn't want his employer to find out exactly how he acquired it... or, if _that_failed to be persuasive, a visit from some hired leg-breakers might be in order.

These two facts lent her some small comfort as she settled in for the night as best she could. She enjoyed pain, sure, as she'd rapidly discovered through her career as a prostitute. But pain didn't become pleasure without an added bit of passion for spice. If the customer had deliberately left her in this torturous position, if he'd sat there watching her for hour after hour as the pain steadily worsened, she would have enjoyed it... but having him simply do so by accident, falling into a drunken stupor like that? Bah. She'd be seven shades of sore in the morning, with no more than that single, halfway-decent orgasm to show for it. Good thing she was getting paid for this, at least...

"Well, you've certainly earned your keep this week, dahling!" Madam Boucoup cooed with that patently false veneer of 'motherliness' that tended to deceive newcomers right up to the point where they received their first week's pay... or what was left of it, after deducing the cost of contraceptives and other potions, and docking them for failing to meet their weekly quota. Said quota, of course, was virtually impossible to meet except during the last week of the month, when everybody else was getting paid and then eagerly blowing that pay on ale and whores. Madam Boucoup took care of her girls, but first and foremost she took care of her own interests...

Melora accepted the proffered purse with an expression of only partially faked gratitude. Madam Boucoup's wasn't the first brothel she'd worked at after all, and however greedy the madam was, she at least didn't really try to cheat her workers - the fees and deductions were a known quantity, and you could decline the potions and make your own arrangements... with the understanding that if you wound up sick or pregnant, she'd fire you in a hot second. She also genuinely tried to look after her girls, at least in the sense of seeing them as long-term investments, best milked for years of profit, rather than burned out and thrown aside over a few short months. So over all, a step up from some other pimps she'd known...

"You've been saving up very diligently for a while now, Melora dearest..." the madam continued, leaning in with affected friendliness. "Got big plans for it all, hmm?" Melora smiled placidly and shrugged. "Just thinking of the future, ma'am. This kind of career doesn't have great retirement-prospects, and... well, my kind doesn't live terribly long." Boucoup nodded in understanding, and patted Melora maternally on the shoulder. "Well, there'll be a place for you here for many years yet, my dear, you may count on that... now run along, and go buy yourself something pretty at the marketplace, why don't you? Thinking ahead is all well and good, but every girl needs to treat herself now and then!"

Nodding, she bade her employer goodbye, and retreated down the stairs to the basement to add her latest pay to her nest-egg. Her 'room' was a tiny cubbyhole in the basement - barely large enough for a shabby old dresser, a tiny desk, and a bed that was both suspiciously stained and somewhat too small for her frame. She lived there, rent-free... in return for assisting the brothel servants with the cleanup every morning, a duty that weighed particularly heavily when she had, say, spent the whole night chained to a wooden horse.

The dresser held her few possessions: The spear that had seen her safely through the wilderness, a set of reasonably presentable street-clothes - all the fancy clothes she wore at work were the property of Madam Boucoup's - and most importantly, the locked moneybox at the bottom. Opening it, she poured her newly-acquired silver onto the pile, and admired it for a moment. It had stacked up fast, faster even than the madam realized. Which was for the best, really. It was generally held among the girls at the House of Worldly Pleasures that sharing any plans for the future you may have with the madam could be a really bad idea - she supposedly wasn't above sabotaging any plans that might cause her to lose a reliable earner...

Not that Melora would have been inclined to share her own intentions regardless. She'd learned, by now, that just expressing an interest_in black dragons, never mind suggesting that you were trying to _find_one, would get you regarded as 'weird' at best, and 'dangerously insane' at worst. Still, it wasn't as if she had any immediate plans to abandon the brothel - it was the steadiest source of income she'd yet found, and _another thing she'd learned by now was that no matter what you were trying to do in human lands, you'd need money for it. And the more you had, the more you could do and the smoother it would go...

Still, looking at the pile... maybe the madam was right. Maybe it was_time she spent some of it! After all, she _did have one thing in mind that she'd been wanting to spend some money on. Yes... after the past week's trials and tribulations, she'd treat herself! Resolutely, she filled her purse with half her stash - enough, certainly, for her purposes - and pulled on her clothes, leaving the fancy dress behind. Using the brothel's clothes outside its walls would see your wages docked, and the madam always found out...

Outside, the sun was shining bright - it was nearly noon. One of the advantages of being a prostitute, she'd learned, was that when you worked nights, you got to enjoy your freedom during the early afternoon - just when the city was at its drowsiest, leaving the stalls mostly empty as they waited out the dry spell between the noontime housewives shopping for dinner and workmen finishing their shift and picking something up on their way home. That meant less standing in line, and better opportunities to drive a hard bargain.

Not that Melora did much shopping, generally. A big part of the reason why her money-box had grown so fat so quickly was that she just... didn't spend money if she could help it. Her dietary preferences ensured that she could live quite comfortably off a diet of dry bread, raw vegetables, and the occasional piece of fresh fruit when she wanted to treat herself. She largely drank nothing but well-water, having discovered quite quickly that she didn't care for the taste of beer, wine or spirits... and after seeing so many drunks filter through the brothel, she cared for the effects of those drinks even less.

No, everything she earned was intended to be used for her Quest. Her_purpose_. And today, she was finally going to take another step on that road - specifically, the road dubbed Scrivener's Way by the locals, home to the city's scribes, accountants, advocates, scholars and sages. She had no trouble remembering what door to seek, and knocked firmly on it. A wizened old man, bald but sporting an impressively long beard, opened it, and blinked nearsightedly at her. "Oh, it's you again..." he said, rather sharply as he looked her up and down. "Did you bring some actual _money_this time?"

By way of reply, she pulled out her purse and dangled it in front of him, shaking it a bit so that he could hear the silver inside rattle melodically. Pushing his eyeglasses into place, he regarded the purse for a moment - then nodded, his expression shifting noticeably. "Well, then! In that case, come on in, honored customer! My knowledge and library is at your disposal..." With an internal sigh, she followed him inside. Money, money, money - it seemed to be all these humans cared about. Shake a bit of it around, and a door that had previously been closed in your face opened hungrily before you.

Still, with any luck, this particular human would be worth his asking-price. Certainly, his shop looked the part - shelves lined with dusty volumes, a few dioramas featuring strange, taxidermied creatures, and anatomical sketches of various monsters hanging from the walls. There was even some sort of large, stuffed reptile hanging from the ceiling, like a particularly hungry-looking chandelier! According to the inquiries she'd made in the earliest stages of her journey, the owner of this rather dusty shop was the foremost authority on all manners of monsters - dragons included - that she'd find for three kingdoms in any direction. Clearly, he knew that too, hence the outrageous fee he charged anyone who came looking for his insights...

"So... what do you seek?" He asked as he ensconced himself behind a huge desk covered in several layers of dusty parchment, tenting his fingers before him. Trying her best not to get her hopes up, she opened her mouth. "Black dragons. I want to know everything there is to know about black dragons." The old man's bushy white eyebrows creased, his expression betraying his surprise. Then he slowly nodded - too professional, at least, to question his customer's preferences. They had that much in common, at least, she thought with some amusement. "Black dragons. Very well..."

Creaking open a hefty reference-tome, he started to expound - rather dryly - on what was known about the black dragons. It proved somewhat limited. "We know that they are different from other types of dragon, in a number of ways, but the exact reason for these differences remain a matter of conjecture..." he began, tapping his finger thoughtfully against the book. "They appear to be outcasts from their kin - possibly due to their violent temper and destructive abilities. While other dragons often band together in large colonies called 'dragonhomes', the black variant appears to be exclusively solitary. How they manage to find each other long enough to breed is a matter of some debate - and the fact that no 'family-group' of black dragons have ever been documented lead some to theorize that they are the result of some... transformation or corruption, stealing the color from a regular dragon along with its sanity. But, ah, you're paying for knowledge, not wild speculation!"

"This much is known: Black dragons are among the most fearsome, dangerous and violently aggressive monsters in the world. Possibly number one, depending on how you quantify such qualities! They are highly aggressive, and often prey on human settlements - be it flocks of cattle or the villagers themselves. Their breath burns extremely hot, and appears to have some form of anti-magical capacity, rendering most magical defenses useless against it. Their scales are even harder to cut through than your average dragon's, which is saying something - and they also clearly possess the usual draconic resistance to magic in spades, though persistent rumors and theories always speak of ways to bypass this resistance. On top of this, they command an array of destructive spells themselves, using a seemingly unique approach to magic that little is known of as of yet - mostly due to few who have seen a black dragon cast spells living to tell the tale!"

Melora felt a chill run down her spine. The nigh-invincible monster he was describing didn't sound much like the awe-inspiring being _she_had encountered, but on the other hand, knowing just how fearsomely powerful he was - beyond what her instincts had been able to tell her the moment she saw him - somehow made him seem even more... irresistible. What could be more effortlessly dominant, after all, than a creature that from the sound of it could match entire armies for sheer destructive power?

Rising from his seat, the scholar shuffled over to one of the many overloaded bookshelves that lined the room, and started running a finger over the many weathered backs as he carried on. "Now, you have heard stories, I'm sure, about dragons kidnapping fair maidens, imprisoning princesses in towers, demanding virgin sacrifices, and so on and so forth? Those tall tales, insofar as they are anything _but_that, are based on the actions of black dragons specifically. Your average dragon will generally be more interested in your purse than your daughter, but - and this is hardly common knowledge! - _black_dragons seem to lack their cousins' fondness for precious metals and stones. Some still collect them, possibly just in imitation or out of habit, but for the most part they seem more focused on feeding their appetites than their greed."

Now_that_ sounded more like her experiences, Melora thought as she eagerly nodded and listened. "Exactly why black dragons so often kidnap women is unknown, I may add... perhaps they just taste better? Certainly, the bit where they are saved in the nick of time by some gallant knight in shining armor is purely a creation of the bards, so we unfortunately have little to go on. Those unfortunate souls that are carried off - or given in sacrifice - to a black dragon generally don't return, and if they do it is because they were rescued before the dragon could even drag them back to its lair. By, generally, a large, experienced, and well-equipped group of adventurers, rather than some solitary icon of gallantry!"

Melora had her own theory about why black dragons might favor female prey in this fashion, and a lustful shiver went through her. Not just at the memory of her own encounter, but at the realization of how special it had been. Apparently, black dragons generally slew - and possibly ate - their 'victims' after they were done with them... and though she could think of worse ways for her life to have ended, he_had spared _her. Did that mean that he... felt something for her? No, no, she shouldn't get her hopes up... but at the very least, it suggested that she had served him well. That she had_pleased_ him. That should work in her favor, at the very least, when she finally found him again. When. She dared not think of it any other way.

"Ah, there it is!" The scholar exclaimed, and pulled a particular volume out from among its thousands of peers. Blowing the dust off its cracked leather binding, he carried it over to a nearby lectern and spread it open, leafing through it as he continued the lecture. "Actually, the danger posed by the black dragons is one of the few things that justifies the existence of that particular kind of fortune-hunter - the 'adventurers'..." he declared, a scornful note in his voice. "Considering their appetite and destructive temper, the arrival of a black dragon inevitably means that any nearby settlements will come under attack. And even those kingdoms who possess sufficient military might to reliably bring down a black dragon are often leery to do so - knowing how little of that might is likely to return from such an expedition, along with the distinct possibility that the beast may sense such a large number of armed men coming and simply flee to harry another township. Hence, hiring some suitably renowned adventurers is generally considered the wisest way to deal with such a beast - and should they fail, well, you won't have to pay them. Quite convenient!"

Having apparently found what he'd been looking for, the scholar stepped aside and pointed to a page in the open book. Curious, she stepped up to look for herself, and felt her heart skip a beat. One entire page was given over to a gorgeously lifelike illustration, one so familiar that it might have jumped right out of her wettest dreams. A black dragon, glorious and awe-inspiring, black scales gleaming as it stood proud against the yellowed parchment! The scholar clearly misinterpreted the shudder that went through her, and chuckled patronizingly. "Yes, a frightening monster indeed, isn't it? Best hope this is the closest you ever get to one..."

Swallowing, she nodded - perhaps the most insincere nod of her life. "Have you ever heard about anyone riding a black dragon?" She queried, pressing what seemed like her best line of inquiry in terms of finding the specific black dragon she sought. She hadn't actually seen anyone riding on his back, and found it difficult to imagine how anyone could be worthy of such a privilege, but the circumstantial evidence was quite compelling - several people had mentioned a woman clad in black scales in conjunction with the theft of Eclipse's trophy, which seemed almost certain to be related to the black dragon's presence near her village... but no-one had seen her come or go by the regular routes. The scholar, for his part, stroked his beard thoughtfully as he looked at her silently for a few seconds - no doubt increasingly curious about her reasons for seeking this knowledge, but still too professional to ask.

"Heard, yes..." he finally replied. "In terms of rumors, legends and the like. Compelling even a regular dragon to serve as a steed for what they would undoubtedly perceive as a 'lesser creature' is a monumental task even at the best of times, you know. Some fabulously wealthy individuals have been known to bribe some of the lesser kinds, like the numerous greens, into such service with a sufficiently exorbitant bribe. Some incredibly powerful mages and wizards have succeeded at compelling the obedience of both greens and_some_ of the more impressive variants, through the careful use of mental magic. One fearsome wizard of myth was known for riding around on a red dragon, for instance - that much is reasonably well supported by historical sources."

With a shrug, he turned and began leafing through the book again. "But as for the black ones... well, considering their lack of compelling greed, and their apparently impressive magical resistance... it is hardly a surprise that there's never been a_reliable_ account of anyone successfully making a black dragon serve in such a regard. Unconfirmed sightings, wild rumors, myths and legends, songs sung by over-exited bards... that's where you're likely to hear of someone riding a black dragon. Probably the villain of the piece! It makes for a compelling image, after all."

Finding the page he'd been seeking, he poked a finger at it and grinned. "My own best theory? At least some of those sightings were likely the result of some mage succeeding at bringing a green to heel, then deciding that such a ride wasn't quite special enough, and then applying a simple illusion to tint its scales from green to black. It's not like the average superstitious yokel or terrified town-guard would be likely to spot the more subtle differences between the two subspecies, and their size is much alike." The new page he'd found displayed a green dragon, in just as fine detail as the earlier illustration - though this creature, to her eyes, was far less impressive. Her eyes took in the curvature of its horns, the profile of its wings, and the configuration of its talons. All different to what she'd seen that day... it wasn't hard to spot those 'subtle differences' when you got such a close look.

"I see..." she replied out loud. "A very... thorough explanation indeed. But tell me - if I wanted to learn even more_about these creatures, where would I go?" The exasperated annoyance in the scholar's eyes was manifest as he briefly glared at her - then he sighed as his professionalism once again took over. She'd asked a question, and he had to answer it or admit to ignorance. "The adventurers, I suppose..." he replied, with obvious reluctance. "The more high-profile ones, who have actually _faced a black dragon and lived to tell the tale. I suppose there may be some things that can be learned from such an encounter, and not from any scholarly work... no matter how detailed and well-researched. Still, I wouldn't get my hopes up - most adventurers will be happy to fill your ears with tall tales for the price of a mug of beer, but you're unlikely to get anything other than self-aggrandizing lies for your troubles. And those who actually have the experience and skill to have survived a meeting with a black dragon, well, they're likely to be reluctant to share their secrets with a regular towns...person."

Already, Melora's mind was whirring as she considered various possibilities. The sight of the illustration had made her quest all fresh again, and she felt the same drive as the day she'd stolen her father's spear and snuck out of the village. No matter what obstacles lay in her way, she'd find a way past, or through them! She'd let that determination sizzle down to mere embers as she worked in the brothel, taking each day as it came while she waited for her purse to grow fat enough for the next step, but now the fire burned bright once more. "How does one go about becoming an adventurer, anyway?" she asked lightly, and received a dismissive snort for her troubles.

"Well, you start by being a bloody idiot, I suppose!" he declared, sneering. "Then you take your skills - which may have earned you a reliable and pleasant career as an enchanter, alchemist, priest or soldier otherwise - and go pick a fight with whatever slavering monsters someone wants dead, or delve into deadly, trap-filled ruins in order to retrieve some odd artifact someone wants for their collection. And somehow, this makes you a 'noble adventurer', rather than just a fool with no sense of self-preservation!" She waited for this rant to peter off, then nodded as if he'd simply given her the straight answer. "So you need preexisting skills. Where would one acquire such skills if, say, one happened to be a nonhuman without any talent for magic?"

Glaring at her, the scholar hesitated for a moment, then sighed and shook her head. "This is a bit outside my primary field, you know... but I suppose the likely answer would be the Mercenary Guild. Regular armies don't generally accept women... or nonhumans... or nonhuman women. But some of the mercenary groups are less picky, and they're generally willing to take in neophytes and show them the ropes, if only to secure a steady supply of front-line fodder. Mind, they _do_expect you to turn up with your own gear - weapons and armor and whatnot - since they don't want to risk wasting resources outfitting someone who's likely to fall during their first engagement. Sensible people - at least compared to adventurers!"

She left the scholar's shop with a noticeably lighter purse, and an increasingly clear idea of how to progress. Step one: Obtain suitable gear. Step two: Locate mercenary band with sufficiently open hiring policies, and sign up. Step three: Obtain combat experience and weapon skills while simultaneously earning coin as a mercenary. Step four: Use earned skills and reputation to join an adventuring band. Step five: Use adventuring contacts to seek out information about black dragon sightings, and particularly rumors about people _riding_black dragons.

Beyond that, well, that depended on what she might learn. Of course, it'd be a touch awkward if she wound up as part of a band hired to kill a black dragon who turned out to be her long sought-after Master... but hopefully, she'd be able to salvage the situation if she turned on her fellow adventurers with suitable speed at that point. Perhaps he'd have to punish her, still... but that thought only made a renewed shudder of sheer lust run though her, and a wet spot form on the front of the simple cotton panties she wore beneath her skirt.

On her way back to the brothel, she swung by Artisan Square, where the blacksmiths, enchanters and leather-workers hawked their wares - from the most basic boiled leather armor to the most extravagantly enchanted swords of golden steel. What would she need in order to join a mercenary band with at least some hope of surviving long enough to learn something useful? Well, she still had her father's spear, which had stood her in good stead so far, so she mostly needed to worry about armor. Leather was for those too poor to afford anything else, and those who largely relied on not getting hit in the first place and thus prioritized light weight over defensive potential. Steel plate was... expensive, to say the least. So, chainmail - or perhaps scalemail? - seemed the order of the day. Which... wasn't cheap either. Also, it was immediately clear that she wouldn't find anything that actually fit her - armor in her size didn't generally accommodate a chest like hers, after all.

Customization, never mind made-to-order armor, would cost more - of course. Everything cost money. Add in a sturdy backpack and bedroll - the things she'd purloined at home before escaping were getting rather ragged by now - and the bill would rise even higher. With a sigh, she returned to her cubbyhole in the basement of Madam Boucoup's House of Worldly Pleasures, and scrunched up on the too-small bed to get some much-needed sleep before the brothel opened in the evening. She'd need at least another month worth of wages - more, if she couldn't consistently meet her quota. But she'd get through that, as she'd gotten through the months before. Even if the fire flagged, the embers would keep smoldering, waiting patiently for when it was time to rise again...

Melora fidgeted as she waited for her interview to begin. The gentleman at the Mercenary Guild had been rather taken aback when she marched in there and asked where she might find a band willing to take her on - like most others, he'd never seen a horse-person before, and clearly didn't know what to make of her. Some bands were known to be willing to hire half-orc, half-elves... but someone who looked more like a half-horse? That was a bit of an unknown quantity. Eventually, however, he had directed her to a band known for being pretty easygoing about your racial background, and from what she'd seen so far, that hadn't been an exaggeration.

The band - alliteratively named Brennan's Brutes - were based out of an old warehouse in the cheap end of the city, which had been converted into a barrack and training-space. She'd gotten several odd looks as she was marched to the small, dusty office filled with forgotten paperwork - but she'd returned the favor, and noted that at least one of the band's green-skinned members wasn't any kind of halfblood, but almost certainly a full-blooded orc. Those didn't tend to be welcome in human cities, let alone human-run mercenary bands, so it certainly seemed as if the titular Brennan was remarkably easygoing in his hiring-practices. If anyone was likely to take on a member of an entirely unfamiliar species, it was probably him.

A large, burly man entered the office. He wore a battered steel cuirass, had short-cropped black hair, and his nose had obviously been broken at some point in the past... and rather inexpertly set. All in all, the very image of a tough-as-nails mercenary commander. He seemed vaguely familiar somehow, and from the way his eyes narrowed when he saw her, the feeling was apparently mutual. "So, you're looking to sign on with us, then?" He asked without preamble as he plopped down on a creaky chair on the other side of the desk. It was obvious that he didn't spend any more time in this office than he could avoid. She nodded silently.

"Why?" he pressed, leaning forwards and putting his elbows on the desk - displacing several unfinished reports, and completely ignoring it when one of them slipped to the floor. She considered her reply for a second, then answered him as best she could. "I'd like to learn how to fight. But someone like me can't just join the army, obviously, and training from a weaponmaster costs a lot - assuming he'd even be willing to take on a student like me. So... a mercenary band seems likely to be my best bet, especially your band, which is known to be... less prejudiced than some."

Brennan grunted and scratched the stubble on his cheek. "If by 'less prejudiced', you mean 'not inclined to turn away a handy heap of muscles just 'cuz they've got the wrong color', then you're right about that. Heck, while I've never heard of your kind before, I can tell that you've got size, strength... probably good stamina too, right? So on that basis, I've got no reason to turn you away." She could already hear the 'but' coming - but she didn't lose hope on that account. There was a glimmer in his eyes, one she knew all too well, and she steeled herself as she started to remember where she'd seen him before.

"...so yeah, whatever you are, I could use another solid slab of meat to throw at whoever we're getting paid to dismember this week. Problem isn't that you aren't human - it's that you aren't a man. I don't hire women, on principle. Not 'cuz they can't fight - most can't, but some can, and a fella who got stabbed by a broad is just as dead as the one that got stabbed by another fella. Nah, the problem's.... social, I guess you'd say. My policy didn't just happen on account of my strong feelings on the matter, ya know - we've _had_broads in the band before, and it never ended well. The boys always started drooling over them in no time flat, and then they'd start fighting each other over stupid stuff, and taking bloody dumb risks in the field trying to impress her... sometimes getting themselves and several of their mates killed in the process."

Grimacing, he sighed and scratched his other cheek. "And if she actually winds up picking one of 'em, it gets even worse. Whichever lucky soul starts stepping out with her, gets a target painted on his back courtesy of all the less-fortunate. Next thing you know, he turns up with an arrow in his back after some easy-peasy assignment. Just bad luck, of course... and if the arrow turns out to be one of ours, well, friendly fire happens, don't it? Just another kind of bad luck!" Melora had to nod along. It wasn't as if he didn't have a point, after all - mercenary squads tended to be rather more lax on the discipline than established armies, to say the least, so stuff like that was bound to happen. And yet, she could just_tell_ that Brennan wouldn't bothering to explain all of that, instead of just telling her no and then kicking her out, if there wasn't some 'on the other hand' point coming up.

A smile spread across his rugged face as he trailed off, and his eyes were more familiar than ever now. "Still... you seem determined. And considering your... past career, maybe we can work something out. A... possibility has occurred to me, you see. A way to avoid all those issues I just mentioned." Sighing, she waited for him to continue. Just as she'd thought... she'd seen him at the brothel, once or twice, in the past. He never picked her out - if memory served, she'd seen him walk up the stairs with two grinning halfling lasses on both occasions - but he'd obviously noticed her at the time. She tended to stand out, after all.

"I'm listening..." she replied, trying to sound as coldly professional as she could. Brennan shrugged and leaned back in his creaky chair. "Well, it just seems to me that all the troubles come from the lads fighting over a broad, in one way or another. So if they didn't have to, because she's just... available to everyone, at all times, without distinction? Well, then there'd be no cause for conflict. Problem solved!" He snapped his fingers, rather soundly. "And I figure it might be good for morale, too." She looked at him silently for a few seconds. Alternatives..? thin on the ground. There were probably bands that were more open to female recruits, but then they might not care for a horse-girl. Who knew if she'd ever find one that didn't care about either her gender nor her species? Frankly, based on what she'd seen of mankind so far, it seemed unlikely.

"So, let me get this straight..." she finally replied. "You'll take me on. I'll receive suitable training, in tactics, weaponry, conditioning, and all the rest of what keeps you alive on the battlefield. I'll be paid my share of the contracts. And in return, I put myself at the disposal of you and all your men, sexually, whenever you require it?" Brennan nodded, still leaning back, and the look in his eyes suggested that he already knew which was she was leaning - that she would have stormed out already if she wasn't desperate enough to take it. Which she was, dammit! "Isn't it nice when you find a use for past work-experiences while pursuing a new career?" He drawled. Sighing, she nodded. "Fine. I accept. Just so long as you don't skimp on the training..."

They didn't skimp on the training. She wasn't the only 'new meat' that the band had picked up since their last contract, and she was put through merciless weapons-drills, lengthy runs with full pack, sparring-matches, and tactical exercises right alongside the rest of them. Two humans, a young dwarf with a rather unimpressive beard, and a half-orc with a somewhat neurotic disposition trained alongside her, and she certainly couldn't claim that she received any less of a comprehensive education than the rest of them.

Indeed, she quickly began to outshine all of them in every exercise, despite most of them at least claiming to possess some degree of prior experience. Most of it was simply her equine nature, rather than any kind of prodigious talent, of course - the dwarf and the half-orc could just about match her for raw strength, but the half-orc lacked her stamina and focus, while the dwarf's short stature gave her the advantage in both stride and reach. The humans, needless to say, just couldn't compete in any of the physical exercises. As for the_tactical_ exercises, they mostly consisted in reacting promptly to the barked commands of the training-sergeant, and when it came to obeying orders without hesitation, she really had become somewhat of a talent.

On top of that, her careful forethought - and the war-chest she'd built up while working at the brothel, and a bit of luck - meant that she was better equipped than most of them, with only the dwarf matching her in that department. In the end, she'd been able to avoid shelling out for custom work by virtue of stumbling on a seriously plus-sized chainmail hauberk, gathering dust in the back of an armorsmith's store. According to the smith, it had been ordered by a rather obese noble, who'd believed such a suit might silence those of his peers who mocked him for his lack of martial bearing - but never got the chance to be disappointed, since he'd died from a heart-attack before taking possession of it. Since it was just taking up space, he was willing to give her a good deal on it, and it proved capacious enough to accommodate her chest - leaving the rest of it hanging loosely around her belly, cinched in with a wide belt. With the money she'd saved, she had him add in a strapped-on plate of hardened leather around her upper chest area - an easy piece of work, even custom-made, and hence cheap enough to be within her budget - thus adding a nice bit of extra protection.

All in all, while hardly a knight's shining armor, it still rather outshone the simple suits of studded leather that the other three had shown up wearing. Steel gauntlets and helmet protected her head and her fingers - both important assets if she intended to succeed in the mercenary business - and she'd spent her last few silvers having the bronze tip of her father's spear replaced with one forged from good, hard steel. It amused her somewhat to consider that at this point, she was more thoroughly equipped for war than any of the 'warriors' back home. It amused her fellow students somewhat less that she seemed determined to show them up in both this, and every other conceivable way.

And then, of course, there were her... 'other' duties. She'd assumed she knew what she was letting herself in for. After all those months at the brothel, she knew what it was like to be looked at like a side of meat, regarded and treated as nothing more than a tool for sexual gratification. But she'd failed to entirely consider some of the nuances. Sure, at the brothel, she'd been a side of meat - prime rib, dangling from a hook at an upmarket meat-merchant's stall. Maybe not a person, but a valuable resource - her worth identified and quantified by the fact that men were willing to pay not insignificant sums of money to spend the night with her.

Now, though, she was freely - as in, for free - available to every last one of Brennan's Brutes. It had taken the men a little while to get used to the idea, and there'd been a touch of awkwardness early on as they tried to figure out how to approach_the issue - but a few of the more confident souls had paved the way, and the rest had soon followed. Now, from the way they looked at her and talked about her - often referring to her simply as 'the whore', without much care for whether or not she was within earshot - she was apparently more like cast-aside offal, suitable for the palate of desperate beggars and dumpster-diving dogs. Worth using only _because she was freely available, bending over, spreading her legs, or sucking their cocks on request and without complaint.

And as for her fellow students - who had, at first, been even more awkward about the situation than the rest, seeing as she was their_peer_ rather than a subordinate - her availability became an obvious outlet for their jealousy and frustrations. They couldn't torture or beat her properly, since her agreement 'only' covered sex- and she almost wished they could have, since that might at least have resulted in some things she'd enjoy. Instead, they used the rights they did have to humiliate her as much as they could - and whenever one of them came up with a creative way to do so, the rest swiftly followed suit.

Every time they were put through hard exercise - running, drills, sparring, whatever - all four would demand thorough blowjobs as soon as they were done, grinning down at her as she knelt before them, licking the reeking sweat off their cocks and balls. They'd take turns invading her bunk every night, since she was after all supposed to be available at all times, using her as a literal mattress, sleeping with her breasts as pillows and their limp dicks wedged inside her pussy. Their most frequent trick, though, was also the one that bothered her the least - namely making use of her ass, and then immediately demanding oral attention afterwards. Tasting the familiar flavor of her own ass on their cocks reminded her of the first time she'd performed such a service - for him, her Master...

The rest of the mercenaries were fortunately less concerned with humiliating her, and moreso with just getting their rocks off - which naturally meant enough blowjobs to ensure that her tongue was being trained just as thoroughly as her arms and legs. Each of them might individually provide a fairly unimpressive load, but she found that when she was swallowing the jizz of a few dozen men, several times a day, it added up to a fairly solid protein-supplement for her otherwise vegetarian diet. Which was not to say that some of them didn't occasionally make use of her pussy and ass - mostly to show off how 'well-hung' they were. While at first they had generally dragged her to somewhere reasonably private before calling on her services, this thin veneer of decency soon wore away and she often found herself bent over a table and mounted in the mess-hall, or kneeling on the gym's practice-mat as she doled out oral pleasures. Some of the more 'decent' ones also took to fisting her, quite vigorously, in one or both holes, after using her - applying enough rough stimulation to make her cum, and declaring it a fine bicep-workout to their fellows.

She took what they gave her happily, moaning in orgasmic pleasure as their friends jeered and laughed nearby. Feeling her sphincter stretch painfully around their muscular forearms reminded her of when a smooth, slippery, arm-sized cock had taken her anal virginity, pushing deep enough inside her to touch her very heart - and if_they_ found some kind of amusement in that fact, let them. It wasn't as if she had any dignity left to preserve, after all. She'd come here to learn how to fight, and she was - the rest was irrelevant, so she might as well just make the best of it she could.

Indeed, despite the feeling that she was largely being treated as a disposable masturbation-rag by her fellow mercenaries, she soon had the chance to feel nostalgic for those days of harsh training and abusive humiliations - when Brennan's Brutes picked up a new contract, and dispatched into the field. Apparently, a nearby small-time lord was having a problem with bandits raiding some of the outlying villages, and since his regular men-at-arms were busy having a stare-off with a neighboring, equally small-time lord over an ambiguous borderline, he'd decided to hire some suitably economic mercenaries to track down and wipe out the bothersome bandits.

Off they went, marching through the wilds, making enough of a racket to scare off any wild animals. The officers had horses, and the cook, the healer and the scribe rode in the supply-wagon - the rest of them were walking, or rather jogging to keep up. This was where all the laps around the training-space while carrying a backpack loaded with stones translated to real life, and the 'new meat' learned the hard way that however harsh the training, it didn't compare to the actual experience of pounding dirt through the whole day, be it under the beating sun or while drenched by a torrential downpour. Still, miserable though the going was at times, her equine stamina saw her through - while leaving most of the mercs and all of her her fellow newbies too exhausted when they made camp to bother calling on her services.

Of course, the real challenge waited at the end of the march - and sooner than any of them had expected. As twilight fell, they approached the village that had been most heavily preyed upon by the bandits - they were supposed to touch bases with the local alderman, to see what he could tell them about the patterns of the attacks and possible hiding-places that the bandits may be striking from. Even in the dim light, however, it was clear that something was amiss. Smoke rose from the village - too much to be from mere cook fires - and the simple huts at the village outskirts sported dark and empty windows, as well as kicked-in doors.

"Seems we're a mite late..." Brennan mumbled to one of his officers, while Melora - along with the rest of the 'new meat squadron' - nervously looked around nearby, gripping their weapon with white-knuckle intensity. "Good thing our contract doesn't specify taking out these troublemakers before they got sufficiently emboldened by the lack of opposition to just take the village outright." As they proceeded deeper into the village, however, it became clear that they hadn't missed the party by very much at all - and that they may, indeed, still be in time for the_after_-party. Coarse laughter and the clink of tin cups could be heard from the village square, and Brennan's stealthy halfling scouts soon returned with word that the bandits were in residence still.

Apparently, they'd seized the local tavern - for predictable reasons - and currently seemed determined to consume the place's entire stock of beer, wine and spirits in a raucous, firelit celebration which had already spilled halfway out into the neighboring square. Brennan's grin glinted white in the gathering darkness as he pulled his officers together. "The only thing I love more than being drunk, is being sober while my enemies are drunk! If we hit them now, they'll barely be able to figure out which end of their swords go where, and we won't have to chase them back to whatever cave or tree-fort they've been striking from until now. Form up the men!"

A light drizzle was falling as they marched into positions, surrounding the tavern and the village square in a loose half-circle. The drunken bandits cavorting in the center of the ambush didn't seem to notice the rain any more than they noticed the mercenaries, too busy singing thoroughly off-key drinking-songs and cracking off dirty jokes. Melora's blood ran cold as she got a better look at the ongoing party from behind the low stone wall that her squad had been directed to hide behind. Apparently, there had been more entertainments than just alcohol available when the party started - judging by the naked or half-naked women and girls she could see, tied down to overturned tables and chairs. None of them were moving anymore. The bandit's raw brutality was clearly in a different league from the gleeful sadism of her brothel-days clients or the casual disdain of her fellow mercenaries. The women seemed to have been beaten or choked to death even as they were raped... and some seemed too young to even be called 'women' in the first place. Nor did the fact that they were dead or dying deter all of the drunken bandits.

The chill in her blood faded, and was replaced with something hot and hungry. Across the square, she could see vague signs of movement in the deepening shadows - unnoticed by the bandits. The trap was about to close on them. They wouldn't hurt anyone else, ever again. She and her new colleagues would see to that. A red star suddenly rose, arcing through the dark sky above - a simple spell, produced by a cheap wand Brennan always carried as a way to signal his troops on the battlefield, particularly a darkened battlefield. Some of the bandits noticed it, pointing drunkenly up at the light and slurring something about making a wish.

Unless they wished for a quick death, they weren't in luck. At the signal, all the mercenaries broke cover and charged, roaring an ear-tearing warcry. Melora was right there with them, her hooves pounding the dirt with eagerness as she outdistanced several of her fellows, spear at the ready. The first man she ever killed died with an expression of stupefied surprise on his face - halfway through rising from his table, a half-empty mug of beer clutched in his hand. He never even_started_ to reach for his sword. A sick feeling burst through the red-hot hatred as she watched him collapse over her spear. It had been... too easy, somehow. The flea-bitten wolf that had surprised her on her first night outside the herdlands had put up ten times the fight of this man. This corpse, now.

Then the other mercs caught up with her, and crashed into the reeling bandits beside her like a roaring wave. The general melee was joined, and there was no more time for either rage or uncertainty. There was only survival, as the bandits grabbed their weapons - too drunk to be afraid, too disoriented to consider surrender - and fought back as best they could. All she could do was to wrench her spear-tip out of the bleeding flesh of her first victim, and seek another. How many she killed during her first battle, she could never quite remember. At least three, she was certain. Maybe five. Maybe more.

In terms of pure numbers, the mercenaries and the bandits had virtual parity. But between the element of surprise and the mercenaries' superior training, discipline and equipment, the outcome of the battle was never truly in doubt. The mercenaries had no interest in taking prisoners, either - nothing in their contract offered them extra coin for doing so, after all, and anyone who did survive would simply wind up hung for banditry. So why go to all the trouble of escorting captives back to town? Thus, they offered no quarter, accepted no surrender, and once the battle finally died down, those of the bandits that lay squirming and shrieking in the dirt only received the swift mercy of a killing blow.

The bandits had been cut down to a man - but the mercs hadn't escaped without some casualties themselves. Three men had died, impaled on rusty swords guided more by the vagaries of fate or sheer misfortune than the shaky hands of their wielders - among them, one of the 'new meat' humans who had tormented Melora so. She could feel no satisfaction as she saw him lying dead there, though - blood soaking into the cheap leather armor that was all he'd ever been able to afford, his face no less surprised than that of her own first victim. The dwarf was unconscious after taking a blow to his stout helmet, but the healer seemed certain that he'd recover without much trouble. The half-orc had received several deep gashes, but bore them stoically - indeed, the battle seemed to have roused the barbaric strength of his orcish side in him, chasing away the neurotic aspect that had defined him until then.

And Melora... well, the plate of hardened leather that covered her upper chest had a pretty serious dent in it, and pain was throbbing through her left breast as a result. A shallow cut decorated one of her arms, barely worth mentioning, it had already stopped bleeding. She felt more tired than she'd ever felt in her life. And finally - and most problematically - her spear was now a quarterstaff. The last bandit to fall before her had done so with a lot of emphasis, tumbling over when his drunken charge ended with her spear-tip embedded in his ribcage - and in the process, the haft had snapped just shy of the tip, leaving it stuck within his cooling corpse. It was fortunate indeed that this had happened in the closing seconds of the battle, or else she might have been in dire straits indeed!

Brennan slapped her on the shoulder - forcefully enough to make her wince - as she stood there regarding the splintered tip of her father's spear. "Ya did good out there, kid!" he declared magnanimously, clearly elated to have finished the contract so swiftly and easily. "You're a natural at this, I think. Most folks freeze up in their first battle, but you got right in there! Maybe even a bit much, eh? Shame about your spear, but I don't think it was the right weapon for you in the first place, now that I think about it. Spears are great when you're fighting in a phalanx, ya know, so you can hide behind your brother's shield while you use it - stuff like that. In a proper melee, they can be more of a hindrance than anything else." He paused for a moment, pondering the haft alongside her for a second or two, then shrugged. "Still, you definitely seem to have an affinity for polearms - that's why I didn't say anything sooner. Maybe you should try a halberd instead, or a fauchard or... a glaive, perhaps? Something like that. Might work better for ya. Either way, you'll be able to afford it with your share of the contract!"

Most of the battle had taken place out in the square, as those bandits who'd been celebrating inside the tavern had rushed out in response to the sound of fighting - leaving all the corpses conveniently piled in the same general area for head-counting and ear-cutting. The village women were cut loose from their bonds and checked by the healer, who unfortunately confirmed Melora's earlier assumption about their health. Only one of them - a girl barely of marrying age - was still drawing breath, and then only shallowly. She died less than an hour later, despite the healer's best efforts. This reminder of what had transpired before their arrival helped to chase the lingering nausea from Melora's throat. She had killed today - men, not beasts - but they had acted like beasts, so in the end, it was not so different.

Then one of the men emerged from the tavern in high spirits. "You're not going to believe this, but there's STILL several barrels of beer and wine in the basement!" He declared, waving his hands excitedly. "They must've been stocking up for some kind of village festival when they got hit. Heck, maybe that's why the bandits attacked when they did!" Immediately, the atmosphere in the square improved, and the mercenaries piled inside the ruined tavern. The barrels were brought up and tapped, and tin mugs were wrenched from the death-grip of fallen bandits to be quickly rinsed out with well-water and put back into service.

They didn't even bother trying to justify it, Melora noted as she lingered near the door, torn between the memory of her past experiments with alcohol and a strong desire to feel suitably numb for a while. Apparently, the right of pillage was considered something of an unwritten rule in mercenary circles - the reason why lords could hire them so cheaply was that they supplemented their pay with whatever they happened to find lying around... generally more to the detriment of the local populace than the lord in question. In this case, the purloined alcohol offered a welcome way to celebrate their victory, numb the pain of the wounded, and chase away the specters of those who had died.

As the spirits grew higher, she soon found herself pulled inside the room - and not to join in the drinking. She made no protests when they tied her down to one of the tables, for all that it seemed rather respectless to the women who had perished outside in a similar situation. Indeed, it was almost certainly the lingering memory of that sight that had inspired the mercs to take this particular step in this case. But she wanted to stop thinking about the people she'd killed - wanted to find the same comfortable numbness as the rest of them - and if she couldn't find it at the bottom of a bottle, maybe she could find it on the crest of an orgasm.

Indeed, she thought as she once again found herself with her head hanging over an edge, mane swaying below and her throat easily accessible, this whole thing might've been the mercenaries' way of distancing themselves from the people they'd just slaughtered. They were_different_ from the bandits who'd been stealing the very same hooch they were now consuming, damnit! When they tied a woman down to a rickety table and ran a train on her, she was willing, even eager! Hence, they were clearly nothing like those men. At. All.

Over and over, they spitroasted her - laughing and slamming their tin cups together over her chest as they fucked her, splashing her tits with cheap beer. They'd stripped off her blood-splattered armor and underclothes before tying her down, and frankly, she was just as happy to be rid of it - she didn't care for the smell of the alcohol, but it was still better than the scent of blood that now clung to her armor.

Driven no doubt by the cheerful atmosphere, her pussy and ass received more attention than usual - with none of them seeming particularly bothered by the somewhat loose conditions as they merrily sawed away. Her tongue and lips worked tirelessly, massaging cock after hard cock, sending load after load of bitter cum down her throat to be swallowed eagerly. Between her work at the brothel and her availability to the mercenaries, she'd grown accustomed to the flavor - grown to enjoy it, even, rather than just seeing it as a chore. The smell of freshly-shed sweat that clung to each set of hairy balls that bounced against her nostrils was pleasantly familiar as well.

Still, she wasn't going to cum from this - not even with the rough-handed mauling that her already-sore tits were receiving whenever one of her colleagues had a hand free. Until now, she'd been largely passive when it came to fulfilling her 'obligation' to them - she'd done whatever was asked of her, offered herself up to whoever made the request, but not a jot more. Now, though, the atmosphere was dense and festive, and she needed to cum - she needed her mind to be washed clean by the bright, flashing lights of ecstasy. So when the latest cock vacated her mouth, she called out plaintively "Isn't anyone going to fist me? I can't keep faking orgasms for the benefit of all your pencil-dicks!"

In any other situation, this kind of naked insult would obviously have caused a lot of anger - but right now, it hit the perfect note. Everyone was already laughing, so they laughed along with this too, jeering and shoving each other. It was a display of willingness - that's what mattered. Confirmation of how different they were from the bandits, just like they wanted. And of course, because_they were different, because it was so _important to them that they were, they couldn't possibly ignore her request.

Two burly arms filled her holes, preceded by beefy, masculine fists. Labia and sphincter alike stretched around them as they began to piston into her holes in an alternating fashion, each pulling out as the other pushed in. She could feel her stomach-skin deforming as they pushed deeper, creasing along the middle, painting an outline of the invading arm that reached to her navel. As her holes grew accustomed to the size and roughness of the intrusions, they relaxed, and the fists pushed deeper - until both of them were elbow-deep inside her, and she could feel the topmost one caress her cervix.

And she came, powerfully and repeatedly, moaning freely around the parade of cocks that filled her mouth. She heard them laugh and jeer at her obvious pleasure, calling her whore and slut, but she didn't care. The ecstasy was erasing the memories of what had just passed, and replacing them with different, older ones - memories of an afternoon in a dip between the hills of swaying green, and the sensation of a huge, scaly body looming over her own. Of being stretched open, and feeling her body forcefully adapt - of pain and pleasure joining together into an angelic symphony that she could no longer quite remember the melody of, but at the same time could never truly forget.

Egged on by her words and behavior, they reamed her out for hours, with fists lubricated by armor-grease. When one mercenary had to step back, complaining of a cramping bicep, another one quickly took his place, eager to show off his own strength and stamina. They punch-fucked her pussy and her ass with merciless, drunken strength, sending a shockwave up through her body every time a muscular arm plunged inside her to the elbow. Her pussy overflowed with sweet juices, providing ample lubrication - and what her asshole lacked in that regard was soon compensated for by a steady drip of slippery blood from the many small tears that the rough treatment had opened in her colon. The perverse display kept them all aroused, and coming around to her head for a third or fourth go - while other, unable to wait their turn, vigorously jacked themselves off, spraying their load across her face or tits while hooting with drunken laughter.

Eventually, as exhaustion and alcohol sent more and more of the mercenaries into a snoring slumber on the floor or - if they were lucky - a chair, the party wound down. As the torches originally lit by the unfortunate bandits began to burn down, casting the wrecked tavern into shadow, she thus found herself finally unattended - pussy and ass both gaping wide from the lengthy fisting, and her belly filled by countless swallowed loads. They'd left her tied down to the table as they collapsed, in a way that seemed almost... nostalgic, although there were some key differences from her time at the brothel.

Firstly, rather than manacles and chains of cold iron, she was held down by simple, not terribly thick rope - probably purloined from the tavern's supply-closet. Secondly, the harsh training she'd undergone with the mercenaries had made her arms and legs bulge with muscles - and now, she began to strain them. The ropes tightened painfully around her wrists and ankles as she pulled at them, and soon began to squeak. The table itself, a rather rickety thing, followed suit with a groaning creak. As she shook off the afterglow of the last orgasm the mercenaries had managed to grant her, her focus sharpened and her muscles hardened - until finally, one of the table's legs snapped, and the rest swiftly followed.

At that point, it was quite easy to extricate herself from the shattered table, brushing off the splinters and the loose-hanging ropes. The alcohol-assisted sleep of the mercenaries, meanwhile, was deep enough that the crash had failed to do more than make a few of them stir, snort, and then sink right back into a steady snore. Sighing, she walked out of the tavern on shaky legs, to find that the earlier drizzle had picked up into a full, drenching downpour, much to the misery of the sentinels Brennan had made sure to dispatch before the party got too intense. They'd all gotten a mug of ale for the road, and a go at her mouth to boot, but they were clearly still feeling hard-done by.

Ignoring them, she stepped out into the driving rain, and let the cold water wash over her. Spreading her arms, she waited there as it washed away the sweat, the encrusted cum, and the lingering doubts. She'd killed, today - and she would do so again. This was the path she had chosen. Her strength was growing, her skills with them... when she finally found her Master, she would be of greater use to him than some simple village-girl from the herdlands ever could have been. She'd come through her first true battle largely unscathed. Her injuries were a joke - the post-battle orgy had hurt her worse! - and it wouldn't cost many coppers to have the hardened leather chestpiece of her armor repaired. It was a shame about the spear, but Brennan was right - it had never been a suitable weapon for the career she was now pursuing. She'd shop around when they got back to the city, and see what she could find at a reasonable price. A halberd sounded like a promising idea...

The halberd felt heavy in her hand as she couched beneath the battered battlement, wincing every time a fresh hail of bolts raked across them. With her back to the wall, she could look down into the courtyard of the tiny border-fort they were occupying, where Brennan was holding court with his officers. There were grave faces all around. It did not seem like any of them had come up with some sort of miraculous, brilliant plan to get all of their asses out of the vise they were now caught in.

It was supposed to be just another quick, easy skirmish. A bit of profitable action on the outer edges of an unfolding battle between neighboring lords - striking across the border and hitting a poorly-defended fort, then retreat just as quickly. The enemy would have to respond to this sudden gap on their flanks, reassigning troops to the now-empty fortress - probably a lot more than had been there in the first place - and this would presumably serve the interests of their employer somehow. But it hadn't worked like that. They'd taken the fortress easily enough, sure, but the 'retreat' part had been rather thoroughly foiled by the sudden appearance of a large, well-equipped, well-supplied army, including cavalry elements, which had swiftly cut them off.

They'd retreated back to the fort, for lack of any better options, but it was increasingly clear that they were just delaying the inevitable. Most of the army had moved on, on whatever assignment it had originally arrived for, but they'd left a big enough detachment behind to keep them all effectively penned in. Worse, the mercenaries had burned the fort's supplies before leaving it in the first place - what they couldn't drag away, at least, and what they _had_carried with them had largely been left behind on the rapid flight back to the fort. So rations were already growing short, and while the besiegers seemed uninterested in trying to mount the walls, anyone who poked their head above the battlements to take pot-shots at them tended to rapidly wind up with crossbow-bolts for eyes.

Everyone was exhausted, hungry, hopeless - and just about everyone who knew how to wield a bow or a crossbow was either dead or injured already. "Wasn't supposed to be like this... nobody said anythin' about the bleedin' Remolian Legions..." one of her comrades chanted nearby, rhythmically beating his helmet against the battlement he was leaning on, same as her, waiting for an assault that would never come. The attackers were clearly perfectly willing to wait and starve them out, rather than wasting lives on an assault that would, at the very least, allow the mercenaries to retort to some degree.

The Remolian Empire. She'd heard about it. Big deal, further down south. Big army, tight, disciplined, expansionist, didn't like nonhumans. Well, liked nonhumans even less than the average human kingdom, anyway. That was about the extend of it - as her colleague had just stated, none of them had been expecting to go up against their fearsome legions on a mission like this, and indeed Brennan would most certainly have refused the contract if he'd caught any whiff that the Remolians might get involved.

She knew that several of the mercs were still dumbstruck by the turn of events, grappling with the hows and the whys. Melora wasn't. None of the officers had taken her into their confidence, but she didn't need them to, either - maybe because she'd had the opportunity to observe human nature at its basest, from an outsider's perspective, it seemed clear what had happened. The princedom they were invading shared a relatively short border with the empire in the south. The war wasn't going well, even before the mercenaries got involved. So that proud, human prince had decided that he'd rather be a servile provincial governor rather than losing his lands altogether - or, worse, his head. And what expansionist empire could turn down such an offer? And thus, here came the Legions - ready to reinforce the borders of their newest province, and protect their new governor... while also making really sure that he remembered what direction to genuflect in.

And somewhere amid this geopolitical upheaval, a small band of mercenaries had been caught between a rock and a hard place. Down in the courtyard, bent over a map-table, Brennan shook his head heavily, and his shoulders slumped. Those officers whose faces she could see from her perch showed a combination of despair and anger. Pushing himself up from the table he'd been leaning on, Brennan then squared his shoulders and marched towards the flagpole in the middle of the fort. He'd do it himself, she knew - because it was his responsibility. That's what it meant to be the leader, the commander - and while she'd never particularly envied him that burden, today she was even gladder she was not in his shoes.

The white flag went up the pole. The gate creaked open, unbarred. Through it cantered a Remolian officer, his burnished helm sporting a mighty, crimson crest of dyed horse-hairs, astride a coal-black war-stallion, and behind him the neat, orderly rows of a full squadron of Legionnaires, shields in one hand while the other remained close to their weapons. From the vantage of his steed, he took in the sight of the assembled mercenaries, battered and hopeless, many swathed in bandages, and the pile of miscellaneous weapons lying before them. Brennan himself stood before this pile, holding out his sheathed sword in offering.

"You made a sensible choice, mercenary..." the officer declared arrogantly, not bothering to dismount and claim his prize. "Though perhaps if you had not been so loathe to arrive at the inevitable, more of your men might still be alive." Brennan seemed to wince slightly - then he shrugged with seeming casualness and lowered his sheathed blade. "Well, like you said - we _are_mercenaries. I had to see if there wasn't a more... profitable way out of this jam than simply surrendering. But in the end, we go where the money is - and there's no profit in getting killed."

The officer snorted dismissively, leaning forwards over his stallion's shoulder to gaze belittlingly down at Brennan. "Yes, yes - you are mercenaries, no loyalty save to the gold on offer, no real affiliation with our enemies... I rather see what you're trying to say. No doubt, you're also trying to make it clear that you'd be just as happy to take our money as anyone else's, and maybe we have room for some proven auxiliaries? No. The answer is no, mercenary. The Remolian Legions have no room for foreign riff-raff. But fear not... we do have another use for you. You'll get your chance to... impress us." His smile was nasty, and Brennan's expression was blank and stony as he nodded choppily.

"Now then! Line up your... mob, and prepare to march. We head south_immediately._ Anyone who cannot walk may as well crawl onto the corpse-fires themselves, and spare us the trouble of throwing them there!" Hard-faced, the mercenaries complied, lining up in the best approximation of good marching-order they ever managed. Four of the more seriously wounded were allowed to retrieve their weapons one last time, so that they could end things on their own terms - which generally meant spitting curses on Remolia in general and the officer in command specifically as they cut their own throats. The officer in question simply watched them die with a cold smirk.

Several other wounded managed to get to their feet, with the help of the last of the healer's supply of pain-numbing herbs, and stood white-faced alongside their surviving fellows as the officer inspected his captives. Predictably, he did a double-take when his eyes reached Melora. "Wh... what manner of creature is that?" he demanded, clearly directing his question at Brennan who still stood at attention nearby, rather than attempting to ask Melora herself. He shrugged in reply. "Melora? She's from some sort of odd tribe, off to the west. Horse-people, they're called, imaginatively enough."

Then there was an odd glimmer in his eyes, and he continued - voice completely flat and seemingly unconcerned. "She's not too bright, but a decent enough servant. Carries boxes, shovels latrines, cleans armor and polishes weapons - that kind of thing. Strong back, good stamina." The officer looked, narrow-eyed, from Brennan to Melora, then imperiously beckoned her out of the ranks to stand before him. She did as ordered, and he looked her up and down. "She's wearing armor." He commented, with deceptive softness. Brennan shrugged again. "She's been bringing food and fresh arrows to the men on the battlements during the siege, and was worried about catching a stray bolt, so we let her borrow some old cast-offs. Mail-shirt doesn't fit too well, but it stopped her moaning about it at least."

The officer nodded slowly, eyes still narrow. Melora's heart was beating rapidly. She wasn't certain why Brennan was trying to pass her off as a mere servant - but she'd seen the expression, or lack of same, on his face when the officer spoke of having 'another use' for the captured mercenaries. And he'd always done right by her. Even though he had set up the 'arrangement' under which Melora had served himself, he'd never even taken much advantage of it - perhaps, considering her past sightings of him, preferring somewhat _smaller_women. He'd provided her with every bit of the training and conditioning he'd promised, led her - and the rest of the band - safely through half a dozen skirmishes since she'd joined, and had always given her sound advice. If he was now trying to pretend that she wasn't one of the mercs... he definitely had good reason for it.

However, the officer still seemed unconvinced. Beckoning her closer yet, he reached inside his belt-pouch and brought out a brass disc, nearly palm-sized, inscribed with arcane runes around the rim, and inset with a clear crystal in the center. Holding it towards her, he asked - in a rather patronizingly slow-and-clear fashion - "Can you talk, beast?" She cleared her throat. "Yes, sir." The crystal in the center of the disc glowed a soft green, and her instincts rang like temple-bells. It had to be some kind of truth-sensing device, no doubt a handy tool for an officer. She had to pick her words carefully... or risk getting not just herself, but also Brennan - who had lied, presumably for her sake - into serious trouble.

Looking at the green light, the officer nodded with satisfaction. "What do you do for these mercenaries, beast?" He then pressed - the obvious question. Fortunately, the second she'd had since first seeing the disc in action had been enough for her to realize what would be coming, and formulate an answer. "I provide services of a sexual nature, sir." She replied, clear and without any attempt at circumlocution. Also, technically, absolutely true. Wasn't the only thing she did for them, but she did do that. And thus, the crystal glowed green once more, while the officer's creased eyebrows shot all the way up to the rim of his extravagant helmet.

He barked out something that sounded halfway between a laugh and a curse. "A bloody camp-follower! No wonder you tried to hide it, mercenary..." he glared over at Brennan, who looked away with a shrug. "Well, I wasn't lying about her having a strong back and good stamina - or helping out with other chores around here..." he muttered, just loud enough to trigger the brass disc. Which, of course, glowed green in response. Everything he'd just said was true, after all - she did her share of the general chores, just like every other member of the band. All of them, meanwhile, stood silent. Any one of them could have exposed the trickery, perhaps winning some favor with their captors... but none of them did. After what had just happened to their wounded fellows, it was unlikely they even_considered_ it.

Glaring down at the disc, the officer shook his head. "Deplorable!" His gaze panned across the rest of the mercenaries, lingering on their surviving non-human and half-human members. "I could tell at a glance that you care less than nothing for preserving the purity and strength of the human bloodlines, but still - you take on a two-legged mare for a field-mattress? The very thought of proud human seed potentially impregnating a mere animal..._disgusting!" He spat, while Melora stood carefully expressionless. She'd been keeping up her regular routine of contraceptive and disease-resisting potions, same as when she'd been a prostitute - indeed, drawing on contacts from her days at Madam Boucoup's to obtain them on the cheap. But it didn't seem like a good idea to tell this spitting, ranting officer _that."

Having apparently finished saying his piece, he glared down at her with... a strange expression. Anger and disgust was in his eyes, certainly, but underneath it... lust. She'd seen it too many times to mistake it for anything else. Yes... a dark kind of lust, denied even to himself. She'd seen people like that at the brothel at times. They were rarely pleasant company. Upper lip curled, the officer ordered some of his soldiers forwards. "Strip that armor off her, and throw it on the pile! A half-beast whore has no right to wear such things!" The legionaries complied promptly, and she let them pull off the armor that had cost her so many months of brothel-labor without resisting.

Not that they stopped at the armor. The padded undershirt went with it... and then, as the officer gestured for them to continue, her underthings as well. All cast aside to leave her standing buck-naked under the eyes of a few hundred soldiers. She could feel those eyes on her body, caressing her curves and weighing her tits, seeking the glimmer of pink between her legs. So many eyes, all harboring the same kind of deeply-buried desire as the officer's - the hunger to taste something not despite, but because you had been told that it was wrong and forbidden.

Indeed, it took a second or two for the officer himself to tear his eyes away from her curvaceous form. Grunting, he looked away, a single bead of sweat on his forehead. "Despicable. To think that any proud human man would even consider... pah! The only creature here that _you_should consider mating with, beast-woman, is the one I'm _sitting_on!" His eyes darted back to her, narrowing, the lust behind them coalescing into action as he arrived at a path that he could take without violating the rules. "Actually..." he said, a vicious smile growing on his lips, "...Incitatus here has been a bit restive since we rode past some mares a ways back. Since you 'provide services of a sexual nature', why don't you slip underneath him and demonstrate your skills, hmm?"

Hesitating for less than a second, she complied. While the legionaries watched hungrily, eyes riveted to her naked form, she went to her knees beside the stallion - a big, muscular specimen, bred to carry armored men into battle and back again - and peered beneath his flanks. The officer hadn't been kidding about the animal's 'restiveness' - his equine cock was hanging halfway out of its sheath, occasionally jerking upwards with lingering lust. Well, it_was_ spring - so the mares would be in heat, and just riding past a few, smelling their fertile scent, would likely be enough to rouse the desires of such a virile beast.

Ducking fully underneath the stallion, she began to stroke the dangling shaft with her hands, feeling its softness under her fingers. Despite the situation, desire stirred in her loins. The shape was familiar, but the size was beyond what any normal horse-man might pack - and it wasn't even fully erect yet! Ever since the incident in the tavern, during the first victory she'd shared with the band, the mercenaries had grown remarkably dutiful about fisting her on a regular basis - she'd rarely passed a day without a muscular forearm punching its way into one of her holes. But during the siege, well, nobody'd been in the mood for much of anything, leaving her various orifices feeling somewhat neglected. Now, they drooled at the thought of what this massive stallion's scepter might feel like inside them - a real cock, smooth and hard and capable of blasting out torrents of cum, as big and long as one of her fellows' forearms and then some! This was something she had not tasted since that afternoon in the dell, when her Master broke her in.

As she leaned forwards, engulfing the shaft with her breasts and rhythmically rubbing it up and down with them, she let the smell carry her away. It was comfortingly familiar, yet wild and dangerous - the smell of stallion-musk, not from one of her own tribe, but from their dumb, animalistic cousins. Breathing deeply of it, she let her tongue caress the edges of his sheath, tasting the encrusted sweat, and willed herself to forget the hundreds of eyes on her... to ignore the depravity of what she was doing. The horse-people didn't keep any domesticated beasts - after all, they lived off a purely vegetarian diet, thus needing no canine hunting-partners, and their crops were hardly bountiful enough to share with cattle - so they'd never really developed a clear-cut bestiality taboo. But she'd lived long enough in human cities, in human brothels, to know that mating with an animal was an act of extreme perversion, and beyond the willingness of all but the most desperate, drug-addicted streetwalkers.

And yet here she was, doing it - licking and massaging the stallion's steadily-hardening rod in front of the eyes of both mercenaries and legionaries. What choice did she have? The officer seemed to consider her very existence a crime, and was clearly looking for any excuse to hurt her. If she knew for sure that refusing him would merely lead to her being flogged, or whipped or whatever, she would've taken that punishment happily - and probably enjoyed it - but she wouldn't put it past him to simply beat her to death. Or have her throat cut, since they couldn't risk keeping an 'animal' around who didn't know her place.

She couldn't allow herself to die. Whatever happened, she'd survive. Her goal was still so, so far away... but the fire still burned in her heart. And if, as right now, surviving meant pleasuring a stallion to the best of her abilities, well, what was the harm in taking whatever enjoyment from it she could? So she moved her body eagerly, caressing the thick shaft with her tongue, feeling it grow harder and hotter against her belly - throbbing with desire. It pushed against her with escalating force, seeking to rise to vertical - and eventually, she leaned back and let it, marveling at the sight of the now rock-hard, fully-erect rod bobbing before her.

Her tongue traced the contours of it, the veins and irregularities, the ridge of the radial disc, back and forth several times before she settled at the gently throbbing head. Opening her mouth fully, she was just barely able to accommodate it inside her muzzle - it was the size of a man's fist, it seemed. Her throat, untried by the many human cocks she'd sucked throughout both of her careers, was unready for such a challenge - there was no way to let it go any further. She could only suck on the head, caressing it with her tongue, while running her hands along the lengthy shaft behind it. So suck she did, forcefully and thirstily, until she finally felt the head flare.

It filled her mouth completely at that point, the thick ridge catching behind her teeth, locking it in place as the throbbing grew stronger. Then the deluge began - thick, hot cum poured down her throat as if from a cornucopia, more than thirty men could have produced... more than a hundred perhaps, she thought marveling as she swallowed again and again. It swallowed her taste-buds completely with its strong, bitter flavor, so virile that she thought she could almost feel it wiggle on her tongue. Mouthful after mouthful poured down into her stomach, filling it with warmth as if she'd just eaten a bowl of hot porridge.

Finally, the flow stopped - though while the flare lingered, still locking them together, her hands continued to move, milking him, pulling the last few drops from his long, thick urethra and into her mouth. Her tongue danced as best it could in the narrow confines, cleaning stray remnants from the creases of the cockhead itself. Then, finally, the flare receded - and with a gasp, she let the thick head escape her lips. The rod still bobbed before her, unyielding hard - a stallion was, after all, supposed to impregnate his entire harem in short order, so a single orgasm would never satisfy him.

However, as she regained her breath, her awareness of the surroundings and the situation flooded back into her mind - which had, so briefly, managed to escape into the primal pleasure of the sexual act. The officer had apparently climbed down from the stallion's back at some point, no doubt for reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with wanting to watch her comply with his orders... maybe he just wanted to make sure she wasn't trying to loosen his saddle? Or at least, that's what he'd probably say if anyone had the guts to call him on his voyeurism, which seemed unlikely to say the least.

"A truly bestial display..." he declared coldly, his voice only cracking ever-so-slightly. "I see that I was right - animals belong with animals, and the sooner both they and any _humans_who think differently learn that, the better!" His eyes darted to the spit-slickened shaft that still hung rigid before her, and then to the mercenaries who had, by now, managed to get themselves more or less ready to march. The corpse-fires had been lit, presumably by those few legionaries who hadn't been transfixed by her performance, and a few squads had marched in to take possession of the fort's rudimentary barracks - presumably to hold the place until their new vassal could send a relief-force of local boys. His eyes jumped back, then, and his smile got even wider and more sadistic than before. "Alas, it seems you're not quite done helping Incitatus with his little problem... but we need to get going if we are to reach our camp-site before nightfall. Fortunately, like any good officer of the great Romulian Legions, I am an expert problem-solver. Men! Lend me a hand or two... and get me some lengths of stout rope!"

They held her by all four limbs as they lifted her up beneath the stallion, who ignored them with a superior air. Cursing at one another, they maneuvered her into position, then pulled her backwards onto the swaying slab of horse-meat between his hind-legs. The unflared cockhead slipped up between her buttocks a few times, much to the soldier's annoyance, before it finally found purchase in her sphincter - reasonably loose from past fistings, and ready to accommodate his girth. Once the head had slipped inside - finally prompting a reaction from the horse itself - they simply heaved her backwards without the slightest regard for her comfort or well-being, pulling her onto the huge cock as if they were pulling a sock onto a foot. Her straining sphincter swallowed his radial ring, while far ahead his cockhead pushed into depths previously only explored by her Master - indeed, she liked to think that he had straightened her colon with his mass and power, creating room which this stallion was now taking advantage of.

Then, they tied her into place, strapping her to the saddle with lengths of rope - arms and legs bent backwards and upwards and fastened with competent knots. The rough ropes dug painfully into her flesh as they took her weight, and she felt the officer's eyes hotly on her dangling breasts and exposed pussy - wet and glistening with the arousal that the earlier oral encounter had produced. Then, after personally checking that she was properly attached - and thus, entirely accidentally, getting a good eyeful of just how deeply his steed's cock had been buried in her ass - he climbed into the saddle and called for the march to begin.

For four hours the legionaries and mercenaries marched through the warm springtime air - while Incitatus merrily cantered, each hoof striking the dirt-road with precision, sending the woman tied beneath his belly swinging steadily back and forth like a pendulum. Mud spattered across her naked body whenever those hooves chanced on a puddle, and her mane trailed in the dust below - while her swaying tits only just barely avoided the same fate. Those marching behind the officer's steed - which was virtually everyone - had a perfect view of both those dangling orbs and her bared pussy, gaping slightly just from the way her legs had been forcibly spread.

The stallion came twice during that march - each time producing less quantity than that first deluge, but still massive loads by any merely human standards. After that, his cock softened to the same semi-hard state she'd found it in originally - still unsheathed, still lodged deep in her ass, with no apparent inclination of letting that change. Eventually, a couple of hours into the march, he emptied his bladder with an animal's casual lack of concern. Her intestines, churning and straining under the combined quantity of cum and piss, applied certain internal pressures - and soon after, she had no choice but to lighten her own load, letting her urine spray the dirt below in full view of the marching legion. Despite their apparent discipline, she thought she heard coarse laughs and whispers at that point, saying coarser things yet...

Around nightfall, they reached a small military encampment, presumably the place this particular legion had originally struck from when they encountered the mercenaries and subsequently besieged them. The captives were all chained together in a large tent, which seemed to have been specifically set aside for just such a purpose - something that raised some worrying implications in Melora's mind. Not that she went there. The officer rode his horse right to the stables, and only then was she released from her bonds, allowing her to fall to the ground as the thick, semi-hard horse-cock finally slid from her aching anus.

What followed was a yellowish-white deluge that soaked through a fair bit of hay, even as the officer himself glared and made venomous declarations about how disgusting and bestial she was, as if she'd had any choice whatsoever in what had been done to her. Then he gestured towards the stallion's softening tool as it dangled behind her. "Well? What are you waiting for. Look at the mess you made - clean it off this instant!" A glance over her shoulder confirmed that 'mess' was, indeed, the right word. The long, hard cock had marinated in the cum-piss mixture, deep inside her ass, for four hours - needless to say, this had left a mark. The whole thing was drenched, dripping with thin goo, and sported a number of brown stains and stripes.

Alas, she did not see a bucket of water and a washrag anywhere nearby. The dark glint in the officer's eyes made it clear what he meant for her to do, but still she hesitated - even drawing near the dangling tool made her nostrils scrunch up. Disgusting as it looked, it smelled worse yet. As she instinctively drew away from it, however, a powerful kick landed square in her stomach, causing her to double over as a fresh spurt of yellowish-white goo burst forcefully from her still-gaping ass with a slimy sound. "What's the matter, whore?" He growled above her. "Think you're too good for the task? Don't be ridiculous! If anything, you should be grateful for the opportunity! Incitatus here is a trained warhorse of fine blood, worth many hundreds of gold! You are a half-beast slut not worth a bent copper, unworthy of even licking my shoes. Now get! To! Work!"

The last three words were punctuated with additional kicks to her ribs, breasts and ass as she tried to roll herself into a ball and protect her vitals. Cold fear wormed its way down her spine as she felt the impacts. This wasn't the kind of whipping, caning or spanking she'd received so often at the brothel. This wasn't meant to simply inflict_pain_. She liked pain. These kicks could break bones, bend ribs, crack skulls - leaving her crippled, and then dead the next morning as the column moved on again. No. No matter what, she_had_ to survive! She had to live, or she'd never see _him_again!

So she pushed herself upright again, and she did as she was told. She licked the dangling horse-cock clean, of piss and cum and her own filth, swallowing every bit of the goo that had clung to the long instrument while the officer watched eagerly, licking his lips in a way that had to be subconscious. Silently, she thanked those rare and nasty clients she'd had at Madam Boucoup's, and before then - the ones she'd hated because they'd been more interested in humiliating her than whipping her. They'd forced her to drink their piss, or lick their cocks clean after using her ass... and thus, had gradually taught her how to suppress her gag-reflex and push down the nausea rising in her throat. Without that training, she would never have been able to complete the task before her without throwing up - and while she had no idea what the officer might have done if she _had_emptied her guts in that manner, she suspected that it wouldn't have been good.

When she was done - and Incitatus' cock glistened with her spittle right up to the sheath - she was finally allowed to rest. Not in the main tent, no, but rather chained right there in a stall, 'along with the other horses', of course. But she was given water, blessedly, and could thus wash the taste out of her mouth, as well as a thin and unsatisfying gruel. Still, she reflected as she swallowed it, she'd probably manage a march on such a diet better than any of her human colleagues, assuming they were being given the same kind of fodder.

She didn't have to, as it turned out. Apparently, the officer had enjoyed yesterday's display immensely. The next morning, thus, she found herself once again being lifted into place beneath his saddle, after having been 'allowed' to prepare Incitatus' tool with her mouth, adding some basic lubrication. It found her ass more easily this time, since her sphincter hadn't fully recovered from yesterday's ordeal... and then, with the stallion's cock buried painfully deep within her, they were off again, across roads made muddy by last night's rainfall.

Yesterday, they'd set out near noon for a half-day's march. Today, they set out at daybreak, and marched for a solid ten hours. There were occasional, brief rests, including a longer noon-break to feed the soldiers and prisoners alike, but at no point was Melora released from her dangling perch. During the noon-break, she begged for water - her voice creaking from the dryness of her throat. The soldiers who had been caring for the horses, including the mighty Incitatus, grinned at one another, then crouched near the stallion's front where she could see them. "Thirsty, beast? Fear not, we've got a special draught suitable for one such as you..." they taunted as they undid their trousers. The speed and coordination with which they'd acted make her suspect that the officer in charge had given them specific orders, no doubt foreseeing that thirst would force her hand soon enough.

They began to pee, their skinny cocks hard from the perverted display she presented - adding significant pressure to the thin streams of yellow they now aimed carefully at her face. Closing her eyes to avoid the acid liquid, she then opened her mouth and sought to catch as much of the streams as she could, while they laughed and helpfully adjusted their aims to match. The piss was hot, sour, nauseating - but it was wet, and she could not allow thirst to claim her. So she drank everything they offered her. She'd need what strength she could wring from it for the rest of her trials.

After ten hours beneath the stallion's belly, the ropes felt more like thin wire by the end, digging into her muscles and drawing enough blood to stain them in places. Her innards strained against her stomach-skin in a visible bulge. Incitatus had been allowed to drink freely, leaving her to watch helplessly between his forelegs as he thirstily gulped down buckets of well-water or availed himself of a convenient stream. Most of what he'd drunk had made its way through him by the time night fell and they reached the new camp - filling Melora's intestines with what felt like gallons and gallons of hot horse-piss. It leaked steadily through the ring of her tautly-stretched sphincter, dripping down to wet her labia, creating a visual illusion of arousal. Half a dozen cum-loads or so were in there too - the stallion'd had enough time to empty his balls, then recover and go another three rounds as they trudged through the day.

She'd been given nothing to eat since the unsatisfying supper the night before, and her stomach was roaring empty - save for whatever piss and cum might have been forced into it from below - when she was finally released. This was probably a good thing, since the hunger made her less susceptible to nausea... something she rather needed when the officer unsurprisingly ordered her to repeat last night's performance, after emptying her roiling, overstretched guts in a nearby latrine. The bouquet of Incitatus' dangling cock had not been appreciably improved by spending a full ten hours riding around in her piss-flooded ass, and considering that she'd been given no opportunity to defecate throughout the day, she probably also had her empty stomach to thank for the relative lack of unsightly smears.

Three days... not counting the half-day right after the fort had fallen. For three whole days, she spent ten hours at a time tied beneath Incitatus, anally impaled on his cock. Each time, she begged for water at noon, and received only piss for her troubles. Each time, she was forced to clean the instrument of her torture after the fact, grimacing through the sickening smell and flavor while ardently focusing her mind on anything except thinking about what she was doing. Three nights chained in the stables of the military bases they stopped at, living on a single meal of thin, unsatisfying gruel, and receiving barely enough water to ward off thirst.

Still, Melora supposed hazily as the sun began to sink on the third day, she shouldn't complain. Sure, her limbs were increasingly bloody thanks to the rough ropes continuing to bite their way deeper and deeper into her flesh, and her entire front was liberally caked with mud that she'd been given no opportunity to wash off. But she was still_alive_, which was more than she could say about all of the mercenaries who had been captured alongside her. Five more had died during the lengthy march, be it by toppling over during the daily march or simply failing to wake up after a night of shivering in the tent they all shared. Exhaustion, malnutrition and poorly-treated wounds had claimed them, to no apparent concern from their wardens. Meanwhile, she hadn't needed to take a single step the whole way! Lucky, lucky her.

That night, however, the journey ended. They'd crossed the border during the day, and were now in the 'old' provinces of the Remulian Empire. The base they'd reached was no hastily thrown-up encampment, but a powerful fortress with tall stone walls. The officer who had led them there still demanded that she provide one final cock-cleaning for his stallion - and she obediently did, as ever, finding it easier and easier to suppress her nausea as she grew more accustomed to the taste and texture of the filthy, slime-covered tool. That, however, was the last she saw of him - and not a moment too soon. She was led away, and to her own surprise, given the opportunity to bathe, fresh - if rather ragged - clothes, as well as a fairly solid meal and as much water as she could drink.

This was all done by people - many of them showing signs of mixed blood - who wore no military uniforms but instead sported iron collars. Their eyes were dull and incurious as they went through the motions, ignored by whatever soldiers happened to pass by - at a glance, they may as well have been part of the furniture, both from the way they were treated and the initiative they showed. After her meal, she was led to a small courtyard and found herself reunited with the healer, cook and scribe that had served with the mercenaries - all of them nervous, clearly fatigued, and unwilling to meet her eyes. Nearby, she spotted the mercenaries themselves - gaunt and hollow-eyed after their deprivations - being loaded into a pair of prison-wagons. That was the last time she saw any of them.

She and the other three, meanwhile, were brought to a blacksmith who, with the same casual professionalism he might have shown shoeing a mule, fitted each of them with permanent iron collars. The metal still glowed red-hot as it was bent into its final shape behind their necks, then pinched together into a single contiguous piece - impossible to safely remove without a highly skilled blacksmith or a moderately skilled wizard on hand. The healer, who had clearly run himself ragged trying to keep everyone alive for the whole march, cried as it was attached to him - whether from the painful proximity of the burning-hot metal, or the realization of what it implied. The scribe just shuddered, hunched over, face twitching, while the cook stood stoic, face stone. As for Melora, she showed no expression. Why should she? She'd seen this coming days ago.

Every camp they'd rested at had contained a large, empty tent, perfectly fitted for containing prisoners during transport. Clearly, obtaining such prisoners was a central priority for the legions... and while she could think of worse reasons why this might be so, such as a predilection for sacrificing their beaten enemies on some bloodied altar-stone for the honor of their gods, the most _obvious_conclusion was that the Remulian Empire still practiced slavery. This iron band, this slave-collar, now marked her as one of them. But she was still alive, and iron could be broken. She'd find a way, she silently swore to herself, and felt the embers in her soul stir.

The four of them, sporting matching collars, were brought before a greasy-looking man whose impractically ornate armor suggested that he was more of a military administrator than any kind of real soldier. A scribe stood near his elbow, feathered pen hovering over the parchment on his lectern, wearing the face of a man who'd grown sufficiently used to being shouted at by his boss that he no longer particularly cared. The greasy man looked the four of them over, his eyes stopping inevitably on Melora as he grimaced. Then he waved his hand. "Send the other three to the market - they should fetch a decent price, especially the healer. But what are we supposed to do with this bloody creature? Nobody's going to pay more than coppers for such an unknown quantity."

The scribe leafed through some documents, pulled up one that was apparently relevant, and cleared his throat. "Ah, according to the Legate, she served her original unit as a general laborer, as well as an... ahem... camp-follower. Supposedly, her... _kind_possesses notable strength and stamina, though sub-par intelligence." The greasy man seemed to consider this for a bit, tenting his fingers, dark eyes scanning Melora's body. Those eyes made her feel a slight chill. There was nothing of the dark desire behind _these_ones. In fact, there didn't seem to be much of anything at all. Just cold calculation, with no thought for anything save maximizing profits. Even the greediest of the merchants she'd had the misfortune of encountering back in the city could not have equaled that gaze.

"Well, I suppose we can always use another strong back around here..." he finally sighed. "Beats selling her for a song, anyway. Send her to the slave-quarters, and have the quartermaster find her something to do." The scribe nodded, but then held up one knobbly finger. "Ah, sir... what about... umm... the soldiers? You know how they can get, especially if they haven't had leave for a while..." The greasy man grimaced, and rubbed his jowly cheek. "Ah yes. Soldiers will be soldiers, after all. We can't allow any mixing of blood, of course, and we don't know enough about this kind of critter to say for sure whether it might happen. And if she spread her legs so readily for a bunch of dirty mercenaries, I daresay she'll spread them for our boys in burnished bronze in half a shake, too!"

He laughed throatily at his own joke, while Melora focused on maintaining as dumb and vapid an expression as possible, as if she was too much of a stupid animal to even understand how she'd just been insulted. The greasy man, meanwhile, rubbed his double-chin some more, then finally shrugged. "Well, there are ways to handle that. Send her to the blacksmith first, and have him fit her for a suitable... preventive. He should be up for the challenge, I daresay. There, problem solved, my princely salary earned! Now get this animal out of my sights, I've still got more to do before I can call it a night." He said it dispassionately, without any of the heat of anger or disdain she'd seen from some of the others. To him, she really was just another animal to inventory and dispose of as best he could, no different from the cavalry-horses and pack-donkeys.

The blacksmith, indeed, turned out to be 'up for the challenge'. On his anvil, he forged for her a rather rudimentary chastity-belt, which was sealed around her waist in the same permanent fashion as her collar. A metal triangle covered her groin, with a thin slit in the middle for piss and period-blood. There was nothing else to it - a proper belt would have also included a suitably restricting coverage for her rear, perhaps sporting some unpleasant-looking hooks that would deter any attempt at entry, without preventing it from continuing to function as an exit... but in this case, the belt's purpose clearly wasn't to preserve her by now nonexistent chastity, but simply to prevent any of the soldiers from knocking her up.

Thus, her life as a slave began. Specifically, as the only _female_slave of any race working in that base. The quartermaster treated her much as he might a pack-donkey with opposable thumbs, using her to move heavy crates, sacks of grain and bales of hay, or setting her to scrubbing floors or polishing armor if there were no suitably hard tasks left on hand. He was a decent enough taskmaster, and only beat her when he was drunk, which was somewhat rare due to his limited salary. Every morning, when she reported for duty, she provided him with a titwank - it quickly became routine, freeing him of the need to even order her to do it. The soft, creamy-brown coat covering her breasts save for the nipples provided stronger stimulation than a human's smooth skin might, and her broad, flat tongue danced competently around his glans whenever it poked out through the top of her squished-together breasts. As long as she did this, he largely left her alone the rest of the day, and her work-report remained decent enough that she wouldn't have her rations reduced or otherwise be disciplined.

Others were less restrained. She was a slave, after all - though she worked for the quartermaster, anyone who wasn't a slave, even the lowliest of wet-behind-the-ears soldiers could order her around. Blowjobs usually satisfied them, and this she didn't mind - there were a lot of soldiers, but the slaves' rations weren't terribly filling, and the added mouthfuls of protein were a welcome addition. Besides, she was used to it from her time with the mercenaries. Once a bit of time had passed, and her ass had begun to recover from the stretching it had undergone during the three days of 'marching' to get there, however, things got a touch less pleasant.

The soldiers used her, sure enough, readily and freely - but at the same time, they seemed to resent it. They were annoyed that they had to lower themselves to using a 'beast-woman' to get their rocks off, and her usual payment for an expertly executed blowjob was a slap in the face and a sharp call to get her slutty ass back to work. The men seemed to have a great need to make it clear, both to themselves and their comrades, that they certainly didn't think of her as a_sex-partner_ or anything like that - more just a kind of assisted masturbation. The soldiers humiliated her at every turn, treating her more as an object than even an animal. So when her ass once again was tight enough to provide at least _some_stimulation to their human-sized cocks, they were quick to find their way beneath her tail - while pushing her up against a wall, forcing her head down onto the floor as they mounted her like dogs, or bending her over some convenient bit of furniture. Her shabby 'uniform' technically included a set of cotton underwear that had clearly been washed a great many times, but they were torn from her body by eager hands within the first week, and attempting to obtain a replacement just seemed like wasted effort.

So they'd fuck her ass, while complaining and joking about how it was clearly made for horse-cocks, not humans, and how she'd be more suitable for showing the cavalry-steeds a good time than them. Once the men had made their disdain suitably clear, they would then switch to her mouth to be finished off - and cleaned, of course. Considering her past experience with the stallion Incitatus, it really wasn't a big deal - but the sheer repetition wore on her. Ass-to-mouth? No biggie. Fifty rounds of ass-to-mouth every day, week after week? Bothersome.

Nor was casual cruelty outside the soldier's remit. Whenever she was tasked with washing floors, leaving her conveniently on her hands and knees, she knew that every approaching set of footstep-sounds was more than likely to result in the delivery of a solid kick between her legs. Some just kicked her ass, in the literal sense, but others aimed lower - and none of them seemed inclined to hold back. The chastity-belt prevented them from fucking her pussy, but it did little to prevent the impact of a steel boot from transmitting painfully through her abdomen.

This was about the only bright spot in her current existence, and she soon figured out that by hitching up her tunic a bit, lifting her tail - which emerged from a hole cut in the back of said tunic - and spreading her legs a touch as she scrubbed the floor, she could give passers-by a direct view of the iron plate covering her pussy mound. Which, predictably, prompted the majority to treat it as a target. Kick after kick would land as she slowly scrubbed the floor, each one prompting her to lower her head and tremble for a moment, expertly twisting her moan into something that sounded suitably like a sob. Sometimes, if enough soldiers passed by - and particularly if they had some frustrations to work out, such as an impending training-march - the repeated kicks with such irregular spacing would actually push her over the edge into a masochistic orgasm.

So ultimately, the soldiers weren't the main factor in making her life miserable. That honor, predictably, went to the officers. There were a few that she could have mistaken for brothers of the man who'd brought her here - not due to some physical resemblance, but on account of having the same kind of eyes... and attitude. And while she technically had to do as she was told regardless of the other person's rank, the officers could - and did - take it quite a few steps further.

One particularly nasty specimen seemed to enjoy looking in on her whenever she was working, seeking any vague excuse for calling her labors insufficient or not up to standard - just so he could 'discipline' her by assigning her to latrine-duty. This was hardly a popular assignment in the first place, but for the average slave, it merely meant digging fresh latrine-pits and covering up old ones. For_her_, it meant being chained down by the latrines, legs tied with rope to keep them forcibly bent so as to keep her kneeling, arms bound behind her back, and an improvised ring-gag lodged in her muzzle with a leather strap behind her neck. The soldiers who came by to use the latrines while she was stationed there rarely passed up the opportunity to empty their bladders in the convenient orifice she thus presented them - and the officer in question tended to find reason to come by at least twice before her 'shift' was over.

Another officer, who seemed to be fairly high-ranking, was by all accounts an avid hunter - of both beasts and escaped slaves. He kept two large, ferocious hunting-dogs whom he clearly treasured... and every time they returned from a successful hunt, he'd celebrate with his personal cohort, and she would be ordered to attend on them. Once she'd filled every wine-cup, she'd inevitably be ordered down on the ground to give the dogs their suitable reward for a fine performance - by letting them mount her, pushing their knotted, canine cocks into her well-tried asshole. It wasn't as bad as all that, technically speaking - the dogs apparently self-lubricated, making the entry easy enough, and the looseness of the sphincter prevented them from tying with her for very long. What was more, the sensation of their partially-inflated knots slipping in and out of her ass was far more pleasurable than anything the human soldiers could do to her.

No, the humiliation, as ever, was the hard part. The officer's drunken bodyguard would laugh and jeer and spit on her, asking her if she was a bitch or a mare, while the officer himself just nodded and grinned and, inevitably, made some comment about how it was nice to see animals getting along with each other. He was particularly delighted when the dogs figured out how to spit-roast her, mounting her from the front as well as the back and leaving her body virtually covered under their furry bulk as they eagerly pistoned their bright-red cocks into her mouth and ass at the same time.

But shame wouldn't kill her, and other than the groin-kicks she secretly enjoyed - which seemed meant as much for humiliation as for pain - no-one was inclined to dole out more than slaps and smacks. She was_property_ now, after all - so damaging her would get the perpetrator in trouble with the quartermaster and his commanding officer. A strange shield to wear, but it worked. Better yet, the way they clearly thought of her as something closer to a beast of burden than a thinking being worked to her advantage - especially since she helped it along by virtually never speaking, beyond the customary yes-sirs. Not like anyone ever tried to strike up a conversation with her, anyway...

Point was, people tended not to be too careful about what they did or said in front of a dumb animal, and she kept her eyes and ears open at all times, collecting information, seeking a way out. There had to be one. Slaves escaped at times, after all - hence, the ever-popular 'sport' of hunting them down on horseback - but most of the escapees were regular laborers or personal servants who only needed to flee whatever fields or private estates they were working at. A military base was quite another matter, surrounded as it was by stout walls and well-guarded gates.

Fortunately, the soldiers knew this too, and while they kept an eye on the slaves laboring there as a matter of course, it was a rote kind of watch - just part of the job, not something to be taken too seriously. This made them... predictable. And eventually, she found the gap in their defenses that she'd been looking for - one that she was uniquely well-equipped to take advantage of. Thus, on a particular morning, she reported in to the quartermaster as usual, provided him with the customary titwank, and received her assignment. Instead of actually_heading_ to that assignment, however, she went to visit the stables.

Caring for the horses was one of the few duties not left to slaves - rather, the cavalrymen and trainees had to care for their own horses, including shoveling out their stalls. It was supposed to help them 'bond' with their animals, but in truth it was mainly a security-concern. A slave who worked regularly with the horses would grow familiar to them, and could, potentially, grab the fastest one while hobbling or poisoning the rest, then galloping out the main gates before anyone could react. Supposedly, this exact scenario had played out in another military base, years earlier, and while the perpetrator had been hunted down and slain in the end, it had been a severe stain on the army's pride.

For the same reason, the stables were guarded around the clock. But this early in the morning, there wouldn't be any cavaliers brushing their steeds' coat, and the sentinel was snoring at his post as he always was at that hour. It was just routine, after all, and there were other defenses in place, making his presence there purely a formality - so why not catch another hour of sweet rest? Those 'other defenses' that the sentinel so relied on awaited her just inside the stable-doors, as she stealthily slipped through them while no-one was watching. Two large hunting-dogs lived there, when they were not hunting with their master, and any unfamiliar presence would be greeted with loud baying and likely a fierce bite.

But_she_ was hardly 'unfamiliar' to them, was she? They did not know or care that the pleasure they had shared with her had been ordered by their master, or that she'd been anything less than a willing participant. They just raised their heads hopefully as they detected her familiar scent, and whined with quiet enjoyment as she petted them on the head. Soon, they relaxed in their bed of straw again, making no outcry as she moved past them to where the horses were being kept. The horses, of course, would also generally make some sort of outcry if they were approached, let alone handled, by someone not familiar to them... but her scent was close enough to that of their own to not raise any hackles, and they just quietly snorted and stared dumbly at her as she moved past them.

It was likely that they would've made more noise if she'd tried to saddle one of them... but it hardly mattered. She'd never learned how to ride, and wouldn't even know how to go about applying the saddle and bridle in the first place. No, her real destination weren't the horses, but the small stack of hay-bales in the corner beyond the stalls. That was where the hay at the bottom of the stalls came from, and unloading those bales was among the tasks that slaves were expected to do - though always under close watch. And of course, it was an ideal task for a beast of burden like herself... hence, last time she'd been called on to do it, she'd carefully stacked the bales a bit inefficiently, creating a small nook against the wall that was invisible from the rest of the room.

That, she now slipped into, caught claustrophobically between the wall and the prickly bales. She was perfectly hidden there, and as she steadied her breath to make sure she was inaudible too, she waited. And waited. Eventually, people arrived. Men cared for their horses, cursing and moaning as they shoveled dung from the stalls, pulling straw from the outer edges of her hide-hole to apply fresh coatings... although there was enough left to keep her hidden still, as she had calculated. Then, close to noon, the wide doors at the end of the stable swung open.

Through it came the back-end of a hay-cart, heaped high with bales. A pair of slaves were escorted in, and the now-awake sentinel watched with boredom as they pulled down the back of the cart and began to unload the bales, stacking them against the few that remained in the corner. She could hear them mutter and groan - this task had, as usual, been on her docket, and in the past they'd generally left most of the work to her. Now they had to sweat twice as hard as they managed without her. From what she could hear, they weren't entirely certain whether she'd simply been assigned different, more pressing duties at the time, or if she'd blown off work - which would be both a first, and quite stupid. Slaves who dodged work were customarily disciplined with the lash, and had their bloodied backs salted for good measure - a treatment she wasn't entirely certain even she could enjoy.

Regardless, her absence hadn't raised any immediate alarms, as she'd figured. That would change once these two reported back to the quartermaster, but for now, despite her not having appeared at any of the duties she should have performed up to this point, nobody had noticed. She was the safe, quiet one who never grumbled, placid and obedient - hardly an escape-risk! If she wasn't where she was expected to be, well, that was probably just because some horny soldiers or a sadistic officer had found a better way to use her time...

Eventually, the bales were offloaded. It took a bit longer than it might have if_she'd_ been helping, but not as much as she'd feared - this was the riskiest, most luck-dependent part of her plan, however, and all she could do was hope for the best. Once the cart had been emptied, however, they had to fill it again - shoveling the pile of horse-dung mixed with old, piss-soaked straw that had built up since the last delivery aboard. This was destined for the farmer's compost-heap, enabling him to take a bothersome load of trash off the army's hands and profit thereby - a very satisfactory arrangement, no doubt.

Finally, their labors done, tunics sweated through, the slaves were escorted back out of the stables, and the sentinel once again took up his position by the main doors. That was the moment she'd been waiting for and, as stealthily as she could, Melora emerged from behind the, now far larger, stack of hay bales. The cart was still there, not yet moving. Through the open gate, she could hear chatter drifting. The old farmer who brought the bales every week was apparently an avid fisherman - and so was one of the low-ranking officers in the base. Every time he turned up, the officer in question would find some excuse to saunter over and strike up conversation on the topic - sharing fishing-stories, exaggerating recent catches, and swapping tips about good locations.

And, as usual, they hadn't quite finished yet, even though the cart had been filled and was ready to move along. Based on past performances, it would be several minutes before the farmer even noticed this fact, tied off his latest yarn, and bid his fishing-buddy farewell. Long enough for her to sneak up to the back of the cart - with neither of the people chattering up at the front of it seemingly inclined to look back. Over the side, and into the muck she went - burrowing into the pile as quickly and quietly as she could. She couldn't avoid the cart creaking somewhat as it took the extra weight, but from up ahead she could faintly hear a "Easy there, Misha! Stop fidgeting!" from the annoyed farmer, before he resumed his briefly interrupted fishing-story. As she'd hoped, he'd assumed that the noise and sensation of his cart shifting was simply the result of one of his two draft-donkeys pulling impatiently on their harness.

Buried in the middle of the pile, she drilled a small tunnel into the fresh air so that she could continue to breathe, and settled down to wait once more. The smell was disgusting, of course, but most of the dung was fortunately quite dry, and... well, she'd both smelled and _done_far worse since she was captured. Eventually, the farmer finished his story, bade the officer farewell, and snapped his reins. Braying in annoyance, the donkeys set off - pulling the creaking cart through the base, and out the well-guarded side-gate, where the sentinels gave them hardly a second look. The old farmer was a regular, after all, and what point would there be in searching a cartful of horse-dung and old straw?

She remained hidden within the load for a while longer, counting the seconds. During one of the farmer's past visits, she'd found an excuse to linger near the open gate long enough to watch how long it took for his cart to get out of sight, as the road it traveled upon turned a corner and disappeared behind a rocky outcropping of the nearby mountains. She waited for this, then a couple of minutes longer, just to be on the safe side - he could be moving more slowly today, after all. Then she dug a bigger hole out into the air, and listened intently. She could hear the cart-wheels creaking, the hoof-beats of the two donkeys, and the old farmer humming to himself. Bees were buzzing, birds were singing - it was late summer. She'd been a slave for roughly three months, by her best accounting.

There was no sounds to suggest the presence of another cart nearby, or any riders. They had the road to themselves. This was her best chance - if she waited for the farmer to reach his farm, she'd have to try and escape from another location, one entirely unfamiliar to her. Stealthily, she pushed herself up from the pile and looked around, confirming what her ears had told her and quickly getting the lay of the land. On the right, mountains rose beyond a narrow brim of grazing-land. On the left, swaying wields of wheat extended as far as the eye could see. The road was empty, and the old farmer - no doubt a touch hard of hearing - had noticed nothing.

She hesitated, then, for a moment. The farmer had never done her any harm. It was possible that he kept slaves on his farm, to help with sowing and harvesting and whatnot, but it was also possible that he_didn't_ - she had no way of knowing. More to the point, she had no way to safely knock him out for any length of time. Even if she'd had a club handy, that would've only taken him out for a few minutes at most, assuming she didn't just wind up crushing his skull. Choking him out was no better. And though she could possibly improvise a gag, she had no rope with which to tie him up.

In the end, she had no choice. Not if she wanted to live. Not if she wanted to escape, and continue on her quest. She needed to return to her Master. She couldn't do that as long as she was a slave to these people - these 'evil, greedy and vicious men', that she had been so eloquently warned about back home. She'd thought, originally, that those stories had been exaggerations - in the cities she'd first traveled to, she'd certainly seen plenty of greed, and a bit of viciousness here and there too... but nothing she could truly call 'evil'. The bandits, deserters and other miscreants that she'd found herself fighting more often than not as a mercenary had been closer to those stories, but there always seemed to be an air of desperation about them, as if their ruthlessness came from a place of fear more than hatred.

But in the Remulian Empire, she'd found the men from her childhood tales at last. And so, biting her teeth tightly together, she reached out and snapped the old man's neck with one deft grip. He likely never had the chance to even realize what was happening, simply collapsing limply on the driver's bench while the donkeys plodded on along the familiar road, caring nothing for the death of their master. Climbing onto the bench, she pulled the reins, and they stopped - long enough for her to get off, brush herself mostly clean, and lift the dead man off the bench. The nearby ditch offered a decent hiding-place, and after dropping him down there, she covered his corpse with some greenery she'd pulled from the edge of the fields. Should keep anyone from noticing him right off the bat, at least.

Then she climbed back onto the cart, and reached under it to grope around a bit - sure enough, there it was. What she pulled out was a stout cloak of waterproofed canvas, which she'd seen the farmer sport once or twice when his regular visit happened to coincide with a rainshower. It was voluminous enough to cover her completely, disguising her tail and inhuman legs, and the deep hood would remove the muzzle from her silhouette. From a distance, she'd look just like a human farmer, riding his cart. The fine weather made her disguise a touch questionable, but without some other reason to rouse suspicion, it was unlikely to raise too many eyebrows.

She snapped the reins, and the donkeys started again. Beyond this point, she'd have to wing it. She knew nothing of the lands surrounding the army-base, beyond the fact that they were near the northern border of the Remulian Empire. Except, of course, that the area _directly_to the north had become part of it not too long ago. Hence, her plan - vague as it was - was to continue making her way east for a few days, then strike north and hope that she'd soon hit one of the more civilized human kingdoms where slavery was banned. She'd have to steal food and maybe some new clothes along the way, and it'd probably be best to travel at night if she could. And maybe she could try to purloin a spade at some point soon, so that she could offload the cart in some isolated spot - it'd be faster going if the cart was empty...

The soldiers caught up with her by nightfall, dogs baying at the front. Their barks made the reason for this swift and accurate pursuit crystallize in her head with sudden clarity. Once they finally realized she was gone, they would of course put the dogs to work - and the dogs would immediately follow her scent to the hiding-spot behind the haybales, since they knew exactly where to start. Once that spot had been found, it wouldn't take a genius to remember that the hay-cart had come by today - and then to send out riders, along with the dogs, in the same direction it had left. Indeed, the dogs would've soon located the old man she'd left in the ditch... and from that point, all they'd had to do was to spread out and search for the stolen cart. Her 'disguise' was entirely pointless.

Unarmed and surrounded, she could only do what her old mercenary commander had shown her, and surrender. The soldiers dragged her from the cart and beat her brutally - no longer concerned about not damaging military property. Punches and kicks hailed down on her, and when she tried to roll herself into a ball to protect her core, she soon found herself pulled up by the arms so that they could freely punch and kick her chest, stomach and face. She could feel things breaking, and foggily wondered if they'd simply beat her to death.

But eventually, the torment ended, and she found the familiar face of the hunt-loving officer scowling down at her as he held up her head by the back of her mane. Her eyes wouldn't focus properly, but she could still see the hatred burning behind his eyes, scorching away the dark lust that had previously lurked there. "You killed a man,beast..." he spat. "And here you had us all convinced that you were nice and domesticated. Well, no worries... we've got a place that's just right for a wild and bloodthirsty animal like you!"

The crowd roared as the gladiator dashed in for the kill, blades flashing. He was lightning-fast, a wiry man wearing barely enough leather and hide to maintain his dignity, deliberately going for a 'barbaric' image - but he wasn't quite fast enough. He'd ducked under her guard with contemptuous ease, sure, but as he rose, twin knives reaching for her flesh, she was able to twist herself just enough that one of them glanced off the top of her breastplate, while the other drew sparks as it met her wristguard.

He didn't let this failure slow him down, though. Dropping down to his knees, he skidded on the sand, passing directly under her right arm, before springing back to his feet in a remarkably elastic fashion. Even as he rose, he spun in place, sandaled feet drawing a circle in the sand, and aimed his knives at her exposed neck. She'd been prepared for that, though, and her arm had started moving even as he went into the knee-slide - swinging her heavy glaive in a wide circle backwards, forcing him to abort his attack at the last second and spring back to avoid the approaching slab of curved, razor-sharp steel.

Letting the weight of her weapon carry her around, she spun with it for long enough to get eyes on her opponent again, then planted her hooves solidly and raised her glaive into the defensive position again - watching the wiry gladiator swaying slightly before her, eyes burning with a sadistic eagerness to see her bleed. He wasn't licking his knives like he normally did, though - and she knew just why. So far, neither one of them had a scratch - he was too fast for her heavy weapon to easily reach, and she'd so far manage to take every one of his attacks on the armor.

This was more of an accomplishment than it sounded. She wore a breastplate of burnished bronze, custom-fitted to her figure - even exaggerating her bust a touch - as well as a pair of gleaming wristguards, but other than the iron band that still hung around her throat, that was all the metal she had to work with. A pleated skirt of hardened leather, similar to what the empire's legionaries generally wore - if a bit shorter and sporting a narrow crack in the back for her tail - covered her hips and upper thighs, but she wouldn't trust that to stop the knives when they had the full impetus of a charging man behind them. Her upper arms and shoulders, her head and most of her neck, as well as her lower legs and half her thighs were entirely exposed - but then, that was part of the point. Gladiators weren't supposed to get through their fights without taking a few cuts - the crowd was there to see blood, after all!

He charged again, and again she managed to block his knives. Another pass, and they drew sparks across her back. Had she turned a bit slower, they would've drawn bloody lines across her bicep instead. Both of them were panting now, but Melora was fairly sure that only she was faking it. All the same, she needed to end this, now, before her luck ran out. Hopefully, his repeated failures and the increasing amount of booing from the crowd would motivate her opponent to seize an opening when he thought he saw one.

Roaring her best war cry, she suddenly leapt forwards, sand flying from her hooves, lifting her glaive over her head for a mighty, overhead blow - a desperate attack that, if it hit, might well bisect him from crown to groin. He could have easily sidestepped it, though... but instead, he dashed forwards to meet the charge, eyes glimmering with eagerness - seeing an opportunity to preempt the attack, dodging below it, and finally burying his knives in her unguarded flesh. No doubt, he'd employ another one of his famous knee-slides, probably aiming for dramatically sliding right between her legs as he cut her.

He didn't get the chance, though - rather than swinging the glaive, she pushed it forwards - stabbing at him with the blunt pommel at the bottom, letting the pole slide through her left hand as she brought her more highly-placed right hand down to meet it. As attacks went, getting poked with the blunt end of a pole didn't sound too threatening - but in this case, the 'poke' had the full weight of her charge behind it, and it caught him unprepared, focused on his own next step, confident that he already knew what she was about to do. The pommel smashed into his forehead, sending his skull snapping backwards as his legs collapsed under him - leaving him falling flat on his back.

Almost before he touched the sand, however, he was rolling, trying to get back to his feet despite the ringing in his ears. But she hadn't stopped moving, and was already too close. A solid kick from her right hoof slammed home in his ribs, sending him rolling further yet, driving the wind from his lungs. Still he sought to push himself up, burying both hands in the sand as he straightened his shaky arms. The glaive flashed in an upwards arc, amputating one of those arms at the elbow and sending it cartwheeling end-over-end across the arena as the previously-booing crowd rose to their feet in a mighty cheer.This was what they had come to see!

The gladiator screamed in agony, clutching the stump with his remaining hand as he desperately tried to still the flow of blood. The arena's healers were skilled - if they got the chance, they could save him, and possibly even reattached his arm. If. One of her hooves came down on his spine, forcing him into the stand, while she lowered her blood-spattered glaive to rest by the side of his neck. Then she raised her head and looked around. The audience were already putting in their votes, raising their thumbs high above their heads and waving them around for attention. Most of them were pointing up - indeed, she could hardly see any downwards-thumbs among them.

Then she craned her neck to gaze up at the Imperial Box at the arena's center, to see the vote that really counted. The Emperor was slowly rising to his feet, striding to the edge of the wall that separated his comfortably shaded seat from the blood-stained sands of the Circus Flavium. He held out his hand, thumb pointing sideways to raise the tension - then slowly turned it upwards. Internally, she sighed. Sometimes, tourists visiting the Remulian arenas misunderstood this traditional gesture, and assumed that the thumbs-up had to mean that the defeated gladiator got to live, right? But that wasn't how it worked. Rather, the 'vote' was an answer to the victor's implicit question - 'Should I kill this man who lies defeated before me?'

Technically, the thumbs-up was merely a permission to finish off the fallen foe - and the gladiator was free to still exercise mercy, despite the opinions of the crowd. But when the Emperor lodged _his_personal 'vote', it was a foolish gladiator indeed who ignored it - especially if that gladiator happened to also be a slave. Looking down again, she brought her glaive up. The man squirming under her hoof was babbling, crying, begging her to spare him. On some past occasions, she'd sincerely wished that she could do so. Not this time, though. She knew this man by reputation - he was popular in execution-bouts, and well known for his tendency to 'play with his food', ignoring potential killing-blows in favor of applying as many painful cuts to his opponents as he could, leaving their blood and their hopes of winning to leak out of them at roughly the same rate.

The glaive descended, drawing a coldly gleaming arc, and the pleas went silenced - his head severed from his neck in a single smooth blow. Bending down, she gripped it by the hair, and lifted it up in her left hand, while holding out her bloodied weapon with the other - spreading her arms and roaring her defiance at the arena and the crowd that inhabited it. They loved it, pumping their arms, cheering, shouting her name - "Me-lo-ra! Me-lo-RA!" She stepped off the corpse that had been a living, breathing man until just a second ago, and turned in place so that the entire audience could see her trophy.

Once the cheering finally started to die down - on account of hoarse throats if nothing else, she started towards the gladiator's entrance, while casually throwing the head over her shoulder. It bounced off the corpse it had previously been attached to, drawing fresh cheers mixed with laughter. 'Manic Mar'kar, Sadistic Slayer of the Sands' had been popular in his time, albeit as a 'heel' - someone the crowd loved to hate. But his star had been in decline for some time, at least partially due to the way he'd executed some of his foes - even this bloodthirsty crowd had its limit, after all - and the fact that he'd failed to even _mark_Melora had shown them that he was over the hill regardless. Thus, such a fine and dramatic death was the best and final entertainment he could have offered them...

Of course, she thought as she stepped from the sun-brightened sands into the cool darkness of the arena's brick-and-mortar guts, if he had_managed to score even a slight touch, _she would have been the one lying dead on those sands - only, considering his predilections, probably in a far worse shape. His knives had been coated with a potent paralytic for this bout - something that was_entirely_ against the rules - but it was clear that her information had been solid once again. He normally loved to lick his blades, for intimidation or just to taste the steel, but he'd refrained this time. He also hadn't started aiming for deathblows even when he grew winded. He knew that if he could land just a shallow cut on her arm or one of her legs, she'd soon be stumbling, losing her grip on her weapon, providing him with a decisive advantage.

How many had she killed, now? Here, in the arena? That thought ran through her head as she walked back to her quarters, waving tiredly to some of her fellow gladiators as they congratulated her on her victory. "Bout time!" one of them called harshly. "I've hated that guy's guts for years!" Another laughed along, nodding. "What's not to hate, yeah? He's just lucky they usually put him up against a bunch of terrified prisoners and slaves. But luck runs out eventually, ey? He didn't stand a chance against the Bloodstained Mare of the Circus Flavius!" She flashed the gladiator in question a grin as she continued her tired march.

In her quarters, she cleaned her weapon, polished her armor, changed into the light tunic she wore outside the arena, and settled down to think. 'Relentless Melora, the Bloodstained Mare' was how they billed her. She'd grown from being just another condemned prisoner and runaway slave thrown into the meat-grinder for the pleasure of the audience, to being one of their darlings - every time she fought, the seats were packed. The last part of that nickname was based on her ability to cut off limbs and heads, of course, while the first bit - as well as a large part of her popularity - stemmed from the way her battles tended to be extremely close and hard-fought. Over and over, the audience had watched her recover from a near-certain defeat, fighting through injuries that would have crippled a man, landing a killing blow despite barely being able to stand.

The truth, of course, was that between the conditioning she'd received as a mercenary and the harsh labor she'd performed as a regular slave, her stamina had been sharpened to a fine point - she had more of it to spare than anyone seemed to realize. As for the injuries she often received - when she wasn't being exceedingly careful to avoid an opponent's poisoned knives - the pain from them only served to excite her and focus her mind. But her time at Madam Boucoup's House of Worldly Pleasures had taught her how to read a room, how to give a customer what they wanted - including acting as if she was in pain when she really wasn't.

"Isn't it nice when you find a use for past work-experiences while pursuing a new career?" Brennan's ghost seemed to whisper in her ear. She'd eventually learned that the Circus Flavius had been the original destination of the captured mercenaries... but by the time_she_ wound up there, after making enough of a spectacle of herself in a smaller, more local arena, none of them had been alive anymore. A few, Brennan included, had survived their initial 'penal bouts', and gone on to be recognized as gladiators in their own right... but none had survived through the three months she'd spent slaving at the military base.

It seemed like cruel irony that after Brennan had taken such a risk in order to get her sent off to the potentially survivable life of a slave, rather than winding up in the arena like her peers, it should prove to have been nothing more than a short detour... and furthermore that she should turn out to do a much better job of_surviving_ there than any of them. Still, at least it meant that she hadn't been forced to kill any of them in the arena. Silver linings and all that. She'd already had to kill... a lot of people, not all of them as deserving as today's victim.

How many? she pondered again. She tried to work it out in her head for a bit, then gave up. Something like a hundred or thereabouts, she figured - and that was just since arriving at the Circus Flavius, not counting the bouts she'd had in the regional arena beforehand. Of course, that number was both a loose estimate, and fairly easy to arrive at. By long-held tradition, anyone who won a hundred bouts in the Circus Flavius, the empire's central arena, was granted a personal meeting with the Emperor... and, if they should happen to be a slave or a condemned prisoner, they earned their freedom and a full pardon in the bargain.

The match she'd just survived was the ninety-ninth bout she'd had here. Of course, some of those past matches had been against multiple opponents, including a few execution-bouts where she'd been forced to slay several untrained, poorly-armed runaway slaves or condemned prisoners. Weighing this out was the fact that several other_bouts had ended with a thumbs-down judgment from the Emperor, or from the crowd while he abstained - while once or twice, she'd ignored a thumbs-up from the crowd under the same circumstances, and spared her opponent regardless. She'd made a decision, the first time she was shoved into the arena, holding a shabby spear and wearing only a leather jerkin for protection - she'd kill whoever she needed to in order to survive, and eventually earn her freedom. But on those occasions where she genuinely _had a choice... she would _use_it. Some people deserved to die. Some didn't. Perhaps it was arrogant of her to decide which was which, but at the end of the day, _she_was the one standing bloodied in the arena's sands while the crowds cheered. She earned that right by surviving, and as long as she had it, she'd make the most of it.

It had certainly endeared her to the other gladiators, who probably recognized better than most others how much showmanship went into her bouts - and respected her for it. Despite the iron band around her throat and her inhuman appearance, they'd adopted her as one of their own - treating her with more kindness and respect than she'd ever known from humans before. Perhaps it was because of their job. No matter how good you were, death was never more than one unfortunate bout away for a gladiator, and that seemed to lend them a different perspective than most - as well as leaving little room for prejudice.

Ninety-nine bouts. It had been high summer when she was deposited at a local arena, beaten and bloodied by her captors. She could never repay the healer of that arena suitably for what he'd done - putting his all into getting her back into shape before she was thrown into the sands to die. Most would have said - as indeed some of his colleagues had- that it was a waste of effort trying to set bones and bind wounds on someone who was destined to be cut down in the arena within days anyway. But he'd ignored them, simply saying that healing people was his job, and that his pride wouldn't let him do less than his best at it. She'd never even learned his name... but thanks to his efforts, she'd been able to kill the gladiator who'd been sent into the arena to slaughter the condemned. And the next one. And the one after that.

And now, here she was. Winter had come and gone, springtime had returned, and she was one more victory from winning her freedom. A full year as a slave - first carrying heavy loads, then fighting for her life. But once she won that final bout, she'd be free, and able to return to her quest... now with far more fighting-experience than she had ever imagined she'd possess. Of course, that was assuming she did_win the next bout. For a while now, it had been quite clear that_someone didn't want a 'half-beast' to walk out of the Circus Flavius free and clear. Most of her matches had been weighed against her, to a greater or lesser degree, and several dirty tricks had been taken into use in an attempt to weaken her. Today's poisoned knives were merely the latest, and perhaps the most blatant, attempt to put an end to her winning streak. Whoever was pulling the strings, they'd no doubt pull out all the stops to ensure she didn't win her hundredth bout...

A knock on her door stirred her awake, and for a moment she was badly disoriented. She'd just sat down to relax a bit and clear her head after the match, then dozed off in her chair, apparently. The candle on her table was burning low. She must have missed dinner. "Come in!" She said, once she'd shaken the cobwebs from her mind. It was still a novelty she found it hard to get used to. She had a door, which people knocked on if they wanted to see her. Sure, it didn't have a lock, and it could only be barred from the outside, but it never was... not that the Circus Flavium didn't have more than enough external security to prevent any enslaved gladiators from wandering off the premises, mind.

Of course, if there was one man in the arena who could, at least in theory, walk through any of its doors without knocking, it was Quintus Geganius Vitalion. He was a burly fellow, with thinning hair that reached to his shoulders - black, once, but going gray now. His well-kept beard likewise had a salt-and-pepper look that gave him a certain patriarchal gravitas. Once upon a time, he'd been a gladiator - and a good one, as evident by the fact that he'd managed to grow old - and he still kept himself in fine shape for a man his age. His current position, however, was that of Arena-Master of the Circus Flavium - a highly respected role, to say the least. It was his job to manage the gladiators, the healers and caretakers who kept them in fighting fit, the monsters and beasts in the deeper cells, the condemned sent to the sands for execution, the promotion of the various events, and so on and so forth.

"Good evening, sir." Melora said crisply. Quintus nodded in acknowledgment of her greeting. "I didn't see you at the dinner-table, Melora - so I thought I'd come check on you. Did Mar'kar manage to nick you after all?" He asked without preamble. Smiling, she shook her head. "Never touched naught but my armor, sir. It was a bit of a tense bout, though - moreso than I even realized, I suppose. Once I got back here and out of uniform, I dozed off in my chair, I'm afraid... your knock just woke me, in fact." She pushed herself up from her seat, wincing slightly at the stiffness of her limbs after sleeping in such an uncomfortable position, and quickly worked out the kinks in her muscles - while also making it clear that she was perfectly fine.

Quintus looked at her for a few seconds, then nodded and sighed. "Good to know. It was a mighty impressive bout - far more than the audience will ever realize - so I suppose you earned some rest. I asked the cook to put a hearty portion of the vegetable stew aside for you. Just go have give him a nudge, and he'll heat it up for you." She nodded and smiled gratefully at him. "Thank you, sir. On both counts. I couldn't have done it without you, needless to say..." Her smile turned into something different as she talked - something less grateful, less respectful, more... seductive.

He returned the grin... then sighed again. "Fat lot of good that's going to do you in the end, though, I'm afraid." Glancing back, he checked that the door had closed properly behind him - then leaned against it, ensuring that no-one would randomly walk in on them. Melora's eyes narrowed speculatively as she looked at his face. Quintus was the one who'd tipped her off about Mar'kar's poisoned knives, as well as countless other tricks and traps that had been set for her during her stay at the Circus Flavius. The orders were coming down from above - somewhere high above - and other than lodge his disapproval of the 'interference' in his beloved arena, there was nothing he could do about them. Except, of course, pass word to her about each and every trap that was set for her.

"So my Centennial Match has already been decided?" she asked, heartbeat accelerating. He nodded glumly. "Aye. Word came down less than an hour ago. And I don't think there's much that can be done this time. Whoever it was that decided you weren't going to win your freedom is apparently all done being subtle. The match is scheduled for three days from now - just long enough to get the word out and the crowd riled. You'll be going up against the Beast. No tricks this time - just an invincible opponent." A shiver ran down her spine. The Beast. She'd heard it mentioned before, but knew no details. The pits beneath the arena held various creatures both natural and not, which were sometimes brought up to fight against specially-trained gladiators... or thoroughly untrained prisoners. The Beast was the nastiest of the lot, brought up only rarely, and only for execution-bouts. Nobody survived a fight with it. There'd been a few such bouts during her tenure, but on each occasion, she'd had better things to do than to go gawk at it. "Well, I am technically still a condemned prisoner, so I don't suppose I can really complain..." she said with forced levity.

Quintus snorted at her bravado, then shrugged. "It's a damn shame, is what it is. After all the other horseshit - no offense - they've thrown at you, this is how it ends!" He sounded disgusted, but also... rather fatalistic. He'd already given up on her behalf. She couldn't. She'd sworn an oath to herself. She had a_quest_ to complete. A Master to find. She couldn't allow herself to be slain by some 'beast', however ferocious. "Is it really, though?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him. He waved a hand in the air, grunting in annoyance. "What, you think I could get away with sabotaging The Beast for you or something? Slip a little something into its water, like they've tried to do with you a few times? Not a chance. Even if it worked, which I rather doubt it would, there's no way it wouldn't lead right back to me. You'd still be dead, and I'd be right there with you... and I ain't quite ready to go that far."

Well, it was worth a try... she couldn't blame him, either. He'd taken a great many risks for her sake already, after all. Only the fact that he tended to treat her coldly polite in public, making every appearance of simply acting professionally towards her despite his barely-hidden disgust at her inhuman nature, had likely prevented whoever was trying to engineer her downfall from suspecting his involvement. However, none of that was relevant. She'd sworn an oath to herself. She would kill anyone she needed to in order to get out.

Including Quintus, if it came to that.

Outwardly, she smiled winsomely and shrugged. "Fair enough - but could you at least, say, smuggle me down to the animal-cells to get a good look at this Beast before the bout? It'd beat walking blindly into the arena, at least." Quintus scratched his beard at this suggestion, face thoughtful. "Know thy enemy, is it? Hoping to find a weak-spot or somethin'? You're wasting your time. That bloody thing doesn't have any of those. Still, if it'll make you feel better, I suppose..." then his face hardened, and he shook his head resolutely. "No. It's just too risky. Gladiators aren't supposed to go anywhere near the animal-cells, and I'm hardly going to be able to pass you off as a stableboy."

Feeling increasingly frustrated with Quintus' unusual uncooperativeness, but doing her best to hide it, she leaned forwards in her chair, crossing her arms underneath her breasts to further accentuate the already impressive display of cleavage she was putting on. "You sure_I can't... convince you?" she asked sweetly, licking her lips with exaggerated slowness. "You _know I can make it... worth your while." For a moment, Quintus seemed torn, his eyes drawn to her bountiful chest. Then he waved his hand, as if chasing away a mosquito. "Oh, stop it! I've already done far too many stupid things on account of your womanly wiles... I ain't some adolescent pup to be pulled around by his sack, ya know! I'm gonna quit while I still got my head attached, thank-you very much!"

Melora winced a bit, pulling back, unfeigned concern on her face. The 'arrangement' she had with Quintus was one that had grown and developed gradually over the months they'd worked together... and while he'd sometimes taken some extra 'convincing' before he was willing to help, he'd never stonewalled her like that before. "Is something wrong, sir?" she asked hesitantly, letting her eyes widen. "Have I done something to displease you? ...were my services the other night inadequate after all?" He shrank away from her pleading gaze, then hardened his face and, with a stifled oath, slammed his fist into the solid stone wall beside her door. "Dammit, woman, don't you get it!?" he growled. "No matter what happens... whatever we've got, ends in three days."

Ah. So that was it. If she lost, she'd be dead - and probably the Beast's dinner. If she won, she'd be free - and gone from his life. Part of what had motivated him to keep helping her, even as it grew riskier, was that if he didn't... she'd wind up dead, thus putting a definitive end to the pleasurable encounters he enjoyed with her nearly every other night. But under these circumstances, that element was gone. Unless, of course... she quickly plastered a quizzical smile on her face and raised an eyebrow. "Says who?" She asked plainly, lying with her tongue, her tone, and her body-language all at once.

He glared at her. "Don't play games with me, woman. You've been gunning for your freedom from the start. Even if you don't wanna talk about it, anyone can see how it drives you." She shrugged and nodded, then pulled slightly on her slave-collar. "Well, yes - I rather would like to get rid of this rather unflattering necklace. But that doesn't mean I'm going anywhere! Didn't you hear_them out there today?" She smiled broadly, putting as much gleam in her eyes as she could. "They were chanting my name 'till they went hoarse. And that was one of my _less spectacular bouts. They LOVE me! Once I'm not a slave anymore, I'll be getting paid for every bout I win - paid in shining gold! And I'll _keep_winning... won't I?" Her smile was challenging now, and Quintus' brow wrinkled in thought. "You're... really planning to stay on?" He muttered. "As a regular gladiator?"

She rose from her chair and threw wide her arms. "Of course! This place is amazing! And it'll be even better once I'm also rich!"_Lowering her arms, she allowed her face to grow grave, and looked him right in the eyes. The best lies, she knew, were mostly made up of carefully rearranged truth. "Look... I know I've never talked about myself much..." she said levelly. "But I was just a regular village-girl when I stole my father's spear and ran away from home to avoid the humdrum village-life and the dull colt I was destined to marry. Then I became a rank-and-file member of a mercenary band that no longer exists. And now? Now I'm the star of the Circus Flavius. I've got nowhere to go back to, and no reason to leave. _Especially not when I know I've got you on... and _by_my side."

Turning her back on the increasingly uncertain Quintus, she flashed him her best set of bedroom-eyes over her shoulder, and began to undress. "Assuming, of course, that I survive that next bout of mine. So... what's it going to be, sir? Will you be... staying for a bit? I_do_ need to go get some food before the cook goes to bed, but... I wouldn't mind a bit of an appetizer first." For a few moments, he just watched silently as she divested herself of the simple shirt and hose she'd pulled on a few hours before, revealing the bountiful curves beneath - as well as the dull iron of her chastity-belt. Then, he muttered a curse and pulled a wooden wedge out of his pocket. With practiced ease, he slammed it into the crack between the door and the wall with the palm of his hand - it was the closest thing to a lock her door would support. "I swear you'll be the death of me one of these days..." he mumbled as he stalked towards her.

She just grinned and waited, back turned, listening for the rustle as he reached in under her cot. The shuffling as he pulled off his clothes and boots. Then she felt him behind her, breath hot on her neck, and something prickly rubbing against her buttocks. One of his burly arms reached around her, gripping her waist, pulling her back against his hairy chest. The other held the coil of rope he'd just fetched from under her cot up in front of her face. "Best be quick about it - the cook'll get grumpy if you knock him outta bed..." he rumbled into her ear. Smiling, she took the coil from his hand. "Guess we'll skip the foreplay, then..." she said lightly, and pulled a length of rope out.

Five minutes later, Quintus was sitting in her chair, thoroughly tied down. She'd learned her knots while working for the mercenaries, and since arriving here at the arena, she'd had plenty of opportunities to practice them. His wrists were tied to his elbows behind him, the rope tightly criss-crossing his chest to keep them further fastened, while also looping around his throat to ensure that any attempt to test them would merely result in him choking himself. His legs were bound to the chair's own, at the knees and the ankles, keeping his legs spread.

Amidst the wild-growing bush that covered most of his groin, a white tower was now rising - one that had been entirely soft when he'd rubbed that bush against her shapely behind, but which had started to harden as she tightened the ropes. She leaned over and fastened the simple cloth-gag he'd acquired a while back around his head, then reached a finger down to run it caressingly up the soft, tender skin of his now rock-hard cock. "Well, this little guy is certainly in a hurry too..." she purred, smiling at him while he groaned through the gag. That little nuance was a recent addition - a demonstration of just how much he'd come to trust her, even if he'd never say it that way. It also most definitely added to his arousal.

With a sigh, she knelt before the chair and engulfed his cock with her mouth, applying her well-practiced oral skills to harden him up even further. One of her hands, meanwhile, pushed under her chin and into the wild bush of his crotch-hair, cupping and gently massaging his testes - a technique she'd found to be highly effective in the past. Maybe not so much because of the direct stimulation, as because his balls literally being in her hand - a hand more than powerful enough to crush them - so forcefully reminded him of his current helplessness, and thus tickled his fetish.

She felt rather sorry for him, honestly. His fetish for bondage wasn't even that perverted, by most standards - though the sheer intensity of it, as demonstrated by the fact that he literally couldn't get it up if he wasn't tied up first, was somewhat unusual. But in a society that still used slavery - where the divide between 'slaves' and 'free men' was razor-sharp and crystal-clear - finding pleasure in being restrained was more than a little socially unacceptable. Unless, of course, you happened to be a slave...

Of course, the way he'd originally approached her was rather amoral... offering her 'hints' about future opponents and some more influence about what gear was made available to her, in return for helping him live out his fantasies. But compared to how she'd been treated and used elsewhere... he was practically a prince on a white horse, really. And over the months, their relationship had grown and developed into something that actually resembled a real_relationship. The restraints she'd used on him originally, he could have probably torn his way out of if he'd really tried, but right now - he was genuinely helpless, entirely in her power. She could've_killed him then and there if she'd wanted to. But he trusted that she wouldn't. That there was something real between them.

And she was using it. Using him. Once she'd won that hundreth match, she'd be gone - leaving behind the shattered corpses of those who'd challenged her, and one broken heart. Assuming, of course, that he did not, indeed, wind up losing his head as a result of taking that final risk on her account. Still, there was no helping it. No amount of carefully-faked smiles could change the fact that, even if she hadn't been focused on somebody else already - her long-lost Master - they would have been hopelessly incompatible. Having sex with him wasn't unpleasant, but... in the end, she wanted to be on the other side of the ropes. So - the most, and least, she could give him was the best sex possible.

Lifting her head from the rock-hard, saliva-coated cock, still gently cupping his balls, she gazed up at him in her most sultry manner and licked her lips. "Not bad for an appetizer... but it's time for the main course, I think." Climbing up into his lap, she pulled his head in between her breasts where he'd find it hard to breathe - and where every breath would be filled with the smell of her fresh sweat. Her chastity-belt sank into the curly hair that covered his belly as she positioned her hips, directing his cock towards her unprotected asshole with one hand - then sinking down on it with a hiss of pleasure. Her sphincter gobbled up his full length with ease, and soon she was bouncing merrily up and down on the hard rod, careful never to rise so high that it might slip out. She moaned as she rode him, letting her pleasure show freely - knowing that he, unlike many of her previous 'lovers', liked the fact that she enjoyed herself too.

She rode him as hard as she could, slamming her ass into his hips, feeling him throb inside her. Finally, he came - spraying his seed deep into her colon, coating her insides. His output in that department was both more voluminous and more intense than any other human man she'd been with - just like his cock was thicker and meatier than most. A real man's man, he was - which of course also made it all the more necessary for him to hide this 'unmanly' fetish of his. She continued grinding against the spasming rod as the flow of cum diminished - stimulating his now highly-sensitive cock in a fashion that had to border on painful, adding yet another reminder that she could keep working at it for as long as she liked, while he couldn't stop her. He groaned deeply through the gag, and she felt the briefly softening tissue harden against her sphincter once more.

"Mmm... nice and warm..." she said throatily, leaning back to let him breathe freely once again while rubbing her belly theatrically. "But I think I'm in the mood for some dessert today." He looked at her with lust-clouded bemusement as she rose from his lap, letting his slick cock slip from her ass. Stepping slight away, she grabbed a towel from the nearby wash-basin, and spread it on the floor a few feet in front of the chair. This was something she'd had in mind for a while, really - an extra 'push' she'd kept in reserve, in case Quintus came across reluctant on some issue and she had to butter him up more than usual. But since this would likely be their last time together... well, he deserved a treat before she broke his heart.

Cutting the ropes that held his knees, she lifted him bodily from the chair with a slight grunt - flipping him forwards, with his still-bound ankles as a fulcrum. His eyes widened as he found himself descending headfirst towards the hard stone floor - his descent held back only by her firm hands. His knees landed softly on the edge of the towel, however - while, with a hand on his hips, she forced him to bend at the waist until his balding forehead rested against the floor, while his rather hairy but still muscular ass rose in the air.

Slipping into the space between it and the chair, she squatted down and reached underneath to caress his dangling tackle for a moment. "Ahh... just the dish I wanted..." she declared, and watched him shudder in expectation, making the ropes creak. She had to use both hands to part his thick buttocks, revealing a puckered hole rimmed by still-black hair. It didn't smell as badly as she'd feared - as tended to be the case, he'd apparently bathed before coming to see her. Probably more of a habit at this point than anything else, but convenient in this case.

Lodging her face between the spread cheeks, she encircled his sphincter with her lips, and pushed her tongue against it - teasing, massaging, caressing it. Her muzzle kept the twin orbs parted well enough that she could release her hands to reach beneath him again - one to grip his balls, the other to steadily and firmly jerk off his slimy cock. She'd done this before, on demand, back at the brothel... but only twice, and that was quite a while ago. Hopefully, she hadn't gotten rusty. The muffled groans from up front and the twitching and throbbing of the dick in her hand suggested she hadn't, though.

Gradually, his sphincter relaxed and loosened under her insistent prodding, and she was able to push her tongue inside. Wide and muscular as it was, it could provide significant stimulation there, and it was quite long too. Long enough to seek out the small, hard bulge at the bottom of the narrow passage - his prostate-gland. Renewed shudders went through his trussed-up body as she began to massage it directly, while simultaneously teasing his sphincter with her lips and the thick base of her tongue.

The taste was dark, bitter, and intense. She'd never grow to like_it, of that she felt fairly certain, but through her various travails, she had at least learned to harden her palate. Whether it was buckets of piss being poured down her throat, or the taste of unwashed ass on her tongue, she wasn't going to gag or dry-heave, let alone throw up. Indeed, she could _pretend to enjoy it without too much trouble, as indeed she did now - gasping and panting and producing tiny moans as she tongue-fucked his hairy asshole, giving him every impression that she was having just as good a time of it as he was.

His cock jumped in her hand sooner than she'd dared hope - pulsing and throbbing as it shot thick ropes of cum down on the waiting towel. While it subsequently softened in her grip, spent for now, she raised her head from her anal feast and loudly smacked her lips. "Ahh, a sweet finale for the feast!" she grandly declared. Then, giving his soft, leathery dick a few parting rubs as it retreated into its overgrown home, she sighed. "Looks like that's all I'm getting out of you tonight, alas..." Rising, she began to untie the various ropes, the session ended for now - and still in time to get some warmed-up dinner, with any luck!

His limbs freed, Quintus rose from the floor with a groan, removing the gag himself and quickly working his joints to loosen them after his temporary bondage. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?" He grunted, looking at her with a strange kind of respect. "I had no idea what to expect when you tipped me outta the chair like that, but... damn. I've never felt anything like that!" She grinned, waving off the compliment while collecting the stained towel for cleaning - which would, at least, be significantly easier than cleaning the floor. "I've been saving it for a special treat..." she said coyly, and truthfully for once. "Maybe we can try it again when we're celebrating my hundredth victory, hmm?" Aaaand back to lying, she thought dryly.

The next night, Quintus knocked on her door again... but this time, it wasn't for a booty-call. He had a grave look on his face as he entered, and was carrying a large cloak. "If you really want to see the Beast firsthand, now's the time..." he growled, throwing the cloak at her. "This should make you at least a little_bit less recognizable. But I can't let you bring _anything into its cells. Not even a butter-knife!" He wagged a finger sternly as her as she caught the cloak - which did, indeed, seem suitably voluminous to disguise her characteristic outline somewhat.

Throwing him a glance with one eyebrow raised, she proceeded to pull her clothes off - leaving only the chastity-belt and the collar - and spread her arms. "There. Nothing to hide!" He nodded, eyes roaming despite himself, and cleared his throat as she pulled the cloak on over her nudity. "Right. Let's go. We've got a limited window here." He led her through the dark corridors of the extensive complex that extended under the entire arena and beyond, past the widely-spaced, flickering torches that were all that remained at this hour of the night. Their goal was far beyond her usual stomping-grounds.

Their path led them through a well-lit guardroom, home to a round table, several chairs, and a rack of weapons and long, fork-like implements that presumably were meant to safely subdue any beast that got loose. Some of the more exotic animals were probably more valuable than the lives of the guards themselves, and their orders had no doubt been formulated accordingly. At the moment, however, the room was empty. Quintus threw her a backwards glance as they swiftly moved through it. "I gave most of the caretakers the night off, and the last one thinks I'm keeping an eye on things while he responds to an urgent message he received. Needless to say, if anything is found to be amiss after tonight, even a braindead infant will be able to figure out who enabled it."

She nodded, accepting the reminder in good spirits. It wouldn't stop her from taking advantage of his trust if she could come up with something that wouldn't be discovered until after she'd won her final match and made her escape... but seeing as she hadn't been able to smuggle any kind of weapon, nor had the time to get her hands on any kind of poison, it honestly seemed unlikely that she'd be able to do much more than she'd said she would.

The passage beyond the guardroom was lined with cells - but not ones meant for humans. Various animals and monsters prowled in those dark recesses, with some approaching the bars to snarl at the two of them as they passed - or just to watch them silently, with disturbingly intelligent eyes. Needless to say, the arena's investors didn't particularly care whether the monsters they imported for the games were intelligent or not - after all, as far as they were concerned, anything that wasn't human was basically an animal. They moved past several such cells and around a corner, before reaching one that was far larger than the rest. Past the bars, somewhere at the back, she could see a massive shadow, and hear a steady breath that had to come from lungs vastly larger than her own. An inexplicable sense of dread was filtering through those bars - sending a cold shiver down her spine despite her resolve, and her steps faltered.

Quintus paused, pulled his heavy key-ring from his belt, and unlocked the door. "It's chained near the back, but I wouldn't test its reach if I was you. If it winds up taking a bite outta you ahead of schedule, well... the good news is that it'd probably eat you whole, leaving no evidence to be discovered tomorrow." Then he stepped back, and started down the passage again, back the way they'd come. "I'll be in the guardroom, playing trumps with the caretaker when he gets back - in the chair facing this passage. When you're done, just stick a hand around the corner and give me a wave, then I'll arrange a distraction so you can slip through."

Then he left her, alone, in the semi-darkness of the poorly lit passage, facing a now unlocked cell... and its terrifying denizen. It took her a moment - and a few deep breaths - to gather her courage. Then she pulled the nearest torch out of its sconce, and carefully pushed open the door, trying her best to minimize any creaking. Slowly, putting her hooves down with exquisite care, she stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind her. Lifting the torch, she inched closer to the sleeping beast, trying to get a better look - she needed to learn something beyond 'huge, dark and terrifying' in order to make this risky trip worthwhile!

As the flickering torchlight finally reached the much-feared Beast, she could not contain the gasp of shock that appeared in her throat. It was a dragon! Not black-scaled, like her Master, but covered in dusty green. It was, however... incomplete. Two tiny nubs on its shoulders showed where its wings had been, before they were severed - whether by whatever brutes originally captured this awe-inspiring creature, or by the new owners, in order to ensure it couldn't fly away from the arena. Indeed, it was in a rather pitiful state overall - its scales were dirty and cracked in many places, scars lined its slender snout, and it was missing an entire talon from one of its forelimbs.

Even so, it was a mighty beast - far more dangerous than anything else she'd seen in the cages on her way here. No wonder it was considered unbeatable! Without enchanted weapons - which were in short supply, to say the least, in the arena's stores - its scales would be effectively unbreakable, leaving anyone unfortunate enough to go up against it with its tiny, reptilian eyes and its open maw as their only viable targets. And considering that said maw held both fangs sharp enough to pierce steel and a terrifying flame, that was hardly anyone's idea of an 'easy target'!

One of those eyes snapped open, revealing a vertically-slitted pupil surrounded by a predatory yellow. Her gasp had, apparently, been enough to rouse the sleeping dragon, assuming it had _actually_been sleeping in the first place. With a rustle, it rose - revealing stout steel chains binding all four of its limbs, each etched with faintly-glowing runes. A collar encircled its serpentine neck near the base, set with a ruby the size of a man's eyeball - but all the same, clearly not an adornment. More runes glowed there... at a guess, it prevented the dragon from breathing fire outside of the bouts. It would be far too dangerous to handle otherwise...

The eyes that rested on her now were... dull, lifeless, like the dusty-green scales that surrounded them. Only a small spark of curiosity sparkled in their depths as the head moved closer, trying to get a better look at her. "You... are not human..." it finally said, its voice a dry rumble. Deep, too. Male, presumably? Better than to keep thinking of him as an 'it', like his captors, anyway. "Why... are you here?" Many possible answers ran through her mind. She felt paralyzed by the revelation - and by his presence. A dragon. Not the dragon she'd sought, but a dragon still. How should she approach this?

Well, standing around frozen, like a rabbit before a rearing snake, was_definitely_ the wrong thing to do. With a sharp intake of breath, she fell to her knees and bowed her head, quickly depositing the torch on the musty stone floor nearby so that she could raise her empty hands in a worshipful manner. "I apologize for disturbing your rest, great one. I did not know that a dragon lived here." Her respectful demeanor seemed to take him aback - his head reared back, then peered around, checking the empty passage beyond the bars, as if expecting some kind of trick. "If... you did not... then my question stands: Why are you here?" He finally replied. His words were halting. She was reminded of when she'd been a slave at the military base - hardly ever saying anything other than 'Yes, sir'. Nobody expected an 'animal' to talk. Clearly, this poor creature had grown even more unaccustomed to conversation than _she'd_had the chance to.

"I am a gladiator." She replied, raising her head to look him in the eyes. "I am slated to fight you in the arena, two days hence. But I only knew you by the name the humans have given you - 'The Beast', they call you, as you may know. So I came here to see what I was expected to fight." The dragon said nothing for a few seconds after she'd finished talking. His head lowered itself to her level, and moved forwards as far as his neck - and chains - would allow, until it was no more than a couple of feet from her. Then he snorted. "So. You have seen, now. How... do you like your chances, then?"

She shook her head sadly. "Naturally, I have no chance against such a magnificent creature as yourself... however lessened by the terrible conditions you are forced to exist under. There is little doubt that you will easily defeat me, alas." His head pulled back a couple of inches in surprise at this frank statement - then rose, as if to get a better look at her face. She'd thrown back her hood when she first stepped into his cell, to get a better look, so he could easily see her equine head and mane. "I have... never seen your like, little creature..." he dryly replied. "But all the same, I cannot... disagree with your assessment."

"Unfortunately..." she continued, once she was sure he had nothing further to add, "...I am not given a choice as to who I fight. I must enter the arena when I am bidden - for I am a slave, myself." She pulled her cloak down a bit, to let him see the iron around her throat. Much simpler than the one that bound his sinuous neck, and entirely unadorned - but the meaning was the same. He hissed, and shook his head. "It is... a sad thing. For what it is worth... I feel for you. But I have... no choice either." There was, indeed, pity in his eyes as he gazed thoughtfully down upon her. "Perhaps..." he finally said. "Perhaps you can simply... refuse to fight me. Deny the... human leeches that shriek and roar whenever I step... into the sands their... beloved 'entertainment'. I can... make it quick and painless."

She met his gaze squarely, and slowly shook her head. "A generous offer, great one... but alas, I cannot. I swore an oath, when they first threw me into the arena - that I would kill anyone I had to in order to escape. There is something I must do outside these walls. I cannot simply lay down and die, no matter how easy and painless it may be." He looked at her for a second as her voice trailed off, and for a moment, it seemed as if he would laugh. Then he dipped his head in a respectful nod. "Your... determination does you credit, little one. But there is no... escape from this place. Not even for one... such as I."

Swallowing, she lowered her gaze once again. "That is not entirely true, great one..." she said, hesitantly, far from eager to contradict him. "There is a rule... a tradition. A gladiator who wins a hundred bouts in the sands of the Circus Flavius earns his - or her - freedom, even if they begin as slaves or prisoners. And the fight with you... is my hundredth bout." She could hear his tail lashing against the stone wall behind him in sudden agitation. "But... I have won far more than that!" he declared. "I am sure of it! Twice, thrice over, at that! But I remain here, a prisoner, crippled and scarred!"

She sighed, and lowered her head further. "The humans... blind as they are... see you as only an animal. The rule only applies to gladiators. I suppose they were willing to recognize me as such simply because I walk on two legs like they do. I will not try to defend their ignorance and folly - it is simply the way it is." The sound of the lashing tail died away, and she slowly raised her gaze again. His eyes had grown dull again as he continued to look down on her, and a sigh that made her cloak rustle blew from his mighty lungs. "So. You can win your freedom, should you slay me... which you cannot. Instead, I will kill you... and win only further torments for my troubles. None promised us a just world, I suppose."

For a long minute, silence reigned in the cell. Then, finally, he asked - as she had hoped. "What is this thing, outside these accursed... walls, that so... drives you?" The hesitation that had briefly left his voice when he grew agitated had returned, and his voice sounded tired, as if that brief spurt of energy had exhausted him. Taking a deep breath, she answered him. "There is one that I love, out there. A dragon, like yourself. I met him but once, but can never forget him. I hope to find him again, so that I may give myself to him - as his servant, his lover, or whatever else he may make of me."

The dragon seemed frozen in place, his eyes widening - and life returning to them, for now, purely out of surprise. "You... love a dragon?" He asked, unbelieving. She nodded, firmly, meeting his eyes unblinking, trying to show her pure sincerity. "More than life itself. I do not know if such a magnificent creature could ever return the feelings of so insignificant a being as I, but as long as I can be near him again, I do not care. Even if he could make nothing of me, in the end, but a meal - I would give that gladly as well." Her heart was beating fast, now. She'd never really put her feelings into words like this before, but even as she spoke them, she knew that they were true.

His head pulled back - as if the sheer intensity of her exposed emotions was a physical force, pushing against his scales. Then he sighed again, and shook his head. "So if somehow I were to fall to your blade... you could perhaps resume your search, and drop to your knees before another dragon." His voice had grown firm again, as if the shock had cleansed him of some of his lethargy. She nodded, slowly. "I could, and would. In truth, I cannot imagine how you bear this existence - how so proud and majestic a being as yourself can live the life you have been accorded. I have humbled myself endlessly to survive as a slave, but I am a humble being to begin with. How can a mighty dragon like yourself be said to truly_live_, robbed of his wings, his fire, his hoard and his freedom?"

The dragon breathed sharply inwards, the air hissing between clenched fangs as she threw the humiliation of his current existence back in his face. For a moment, she feared that she had gone too far, pushed too hard. Then he chuckled sadly and lowered his head. "I said it myself, did I not? ...every time I go out there and fight for my life - for this pathetic excuse for a life! - I give those... those vicious animals who flock to the arena every day, exactly what they want. Hah. So that is the 'choice' I have, after all. To simply... let it end."

Silence reigned again, for several minutes this time. The dragon had sunk in on himself, eyes closed, while Melora patiently waited for his inner battle to end. Finally, his eyes opened again - clear and sharp - and his head again approached her. "Come closer, little one..." he asked, giving no reason for this request. Nonetheless, she immediately complied. There was little reason to fear putting herself inside his reach - after all, as they had established from the very start, she would stand no chance against him in the arena anyway.

She walked up close to him as he rose up on all four legs again. Not just within the reach of his long neck, but his powerful forelimbs as well - as was demonstrated when, with a clinking of chains, he raised one forelimb and used it to pull off her cloak. His talons brushed across her coat as he did, but never broke her skin - while she stood firm, unresisting, simply raising her arms to let the cloak rise off. If he was surprised to find her effectively naked underneath it, he didn't show it. Instead, he simply used his long neck to circle his head around her, regarding her body from every angle.

Finally, he nodded. "Hmm. Whether that faraway cousin of mine who won your heart will find you pleasing or not, I cannot say - but I, at least, do not find you displeasing to the eye. Fairer, certainly, than those pale-skinned human cretins!" She bobbed her head, smiling at the compliment. "Thank you, great one. It means much to hear such kind words from a being of your magnitude." Clicking his tongue, he harrumphed. "I'm sure. Now pay attention, if you will. When I was captured... so long ago that I dare not truly contemplate it... I was raiding human caravans, ignoring fell warnings from my elders about what kind of trouble this might bring me. I was foolish... and desperate. The humans carried much wealth, and I was eager to build my hoard, for I was young and in love. A fair dragoness had caught my eye, you see, and my heart to boot, but she would not look my way without a hoard to call my own..."

He trailed off for a moment, then twisted his head to look back at himself - his eyes lingering on the small bone-nubs that had once been his wings. "Even if I were to escape from here... even if she has not already found a suitable mate and clutched many fertile eggs with him by now..." he said, voice growing thick, "...she would certainly never consider me as I am now. A dragon without wings cannot fly the mating-flight." His head swiveled around again, and lowered itself further as he inspected her again - this time clearly focusing on her groin, and the muscular arc of her buttocks. "The happiness I once sought has been lost to me for many years, little one - but you may still find yours, with such fine determination burning in your heart and driving you forwards. Thus, I will lay down my life for you, and rob the human leeches of any further entertainment on my account."

Her heart skipped a beat as he made this declaration, but she already had a keen feeling that he wasn't done talking. Sure enough, while looking closely at the expression of happiness that had overtaken her face, he chuckled. "But in return... I would have you do something for me, little one. I will never fly with the dragoness of my dreams... but all the same, I refuse to die a virgin. You seek to be a dragon's lover? Then I must assume that you are prepared for the_scale_ of such a task. Offer yourself to me, and let me feel a lover's touch at long last. Thus, if I must fall in the sands two days hence, it will at least be without regrets..."

Melora nodded eagerly, already feeling a moistening in her long-unused pussy. "I would be delighted - indeed, honored - to serve you in such a way, great one!" she gushed - then paused, gesturing awkwardly down towards her groin. "...though, I fear my ability to do so will be slightly hampered. The humans saw fit to restrain me from using my... primary orifice." The dragon lowered his head to peer more closely at the chastity-belt she'd worn for a year, now - predatory eyes blinking as they penetrated the gloom. "Truly, the petty cruelties of the humans know no bounds..." he rumbled. "But this, at least, can be easily corrected. Stand quite still, if you would..."

Crippled and worn though he was, he remained a dragon - and once he put his razor-sharp talons to the task, mere iron could not hope to prevail. With a metallic whine, he scissored through the cold metal as if it was soft leather - once, twice, on each side of her body. Parted, the belt fell to the ground, landing in two pieces atop her discarded robe. Sighing with relief, she rubbed the newly-freed path. Her coat had just about been rubbed off by the belt over the past year, leaving her with a patch of bare skin encircling her waist - while her vulva, likewise, was quite bare and a touch discolored to boot.

The dragon, however, did not seem to mind - instead, his nostrils flared, and he chuckled. "I smell a scent I've never known before... but my instincts tell me it is the scent of arousal. It seems you truly do favor dragons..." She nodded, smiling up at him with her best set of bedroom-eyes for added impact. "I do indeed, great one - and though you are not the one I truly love, you are still the closest I have gotten since I first encountered my beloved nigh on two years ago. Naturally, my body is more than eager to welcome you. Indeed, let me begin to prepare you, if I may? I surely lack much of what you may have found beautiful in a dragoness - but I also do have something no dragon does: Soft lips, a wide tongue, and a mouth free of fangs."

Grinning, the dragon rearranged his body - pushing his forequarters high, while lowering his rear to the floor, tucking in his hind-legs. "By all means, show me what those things can do..." he said dryly. "Though I suspect you won't find it all that pleasant a task." Ignoring this warning, she dove into the shadow of his looming body, eager to finally see what he was packing... not that the faint light of a single torch, flickering away on the floor behind her, would let her make out much in the way of details. Still, she could see enough to tell that the rapidly-hardening dragon-dick before her, already fully emerged from its sheath, looked very little like the one that remained burned into her memories. That one had been... like a mighty column, pure and uncomplicated, its sheer size made all the more eye-catching by the utter simplicity of its shape. The one before her, was... different. Smaller, ultimately, but also sporting a couple of 'complications' that she couldn't claim to mind. A series of ridges lined the top of it, for starters, reminiscent of overlapping scales - casting deep shadows in the faint light. And the bulge at the bottom of the shaft brought to mind the hefty hunting-dogs that she'd gotten to know so well back at the military base... though at a scale where it may well serve its presumed purpose, where they had failed.

As she knelt and lowered her head, it also became clear what the dragon had meant by his warning. Obviously, his captors hadn't cared to give him the chance to bathe, for the entire length of his captivity most likely. Nor had he likely had much reason to unsheathe his tool during that span of time. How long had it been, she wondered? Was the arena even his first prison, or simply the latest? Surely, a captured and cowed dragon had many uses. Regardless, the smell that rose from his revealed tool could more accurately be described as a stench, or perhaps a reek. Blotches of whiteish slime dotted it - remnants of well-aged sheath-lubricant, sporting a decidedly cheese-like smell. Back during her tenure at the military base, she'd found herself forced to service a number of soldiers with poor personal hygiene, and had heard them laughingly refer to the nasty goo often found under their foreskins as 'dick-cheese' - but none of them had been close to this.

Thus, for the second night in a row, she found herself glad that her experiences as a slave - and particularly the events surrounding her original capture - had so effectively hardened her palate - and provided her with a strong stomach in the bargain. Though, even so, it would probably be wise to look up the arena's highly competent healer tomorrow, and request a digestion-aiding brew - it wouldn't do to be suffering from lingering stomach-pangs when she next stepped out into the sands. With such thoughts, she distracted herself as well as she could while carrying out the duty she had taken upon herself - licking the stain of years, decades, and possibly more than that off the dragon's red, veiny cock. The ridges along the back were the worst, predictably, and she sincerely hoped that they'd prove to be just as pleasurable as they looked - that, at least, would be some compensation for the amount of disgusting goo that had accumulated along them.

Carrying on while maintaining careful control over her gag-reflex, she eventually worked her way all around the hefty tool, up and down the front and the back, right down to the edge of the sheath where the stench was near-overpowering. In the end, she was left with a gleaming, spotless dragon-cock, a dreadfully bitter taste in her mouth, and an unpleasant rumble in her tummy. Still, welcoming that tool into her newly-liberated pussy without such a cleaning would have been quite gross too, she reminded herself - and likely to give her some kind of infection that it would be rather embarrassing to explain to the healer, to boot.

More importantly, the dragon had clearly enjoyed her tender ministrations, based on the panting she was hearing and the vibrations that kept running up and down the rock-hard shaft. She wasn't exactly an expert on draconic sexual behavior, but based on her more general_experience, she suspected that he was already nearing an orgasm despite the relatively light stimulation she'd doled out in the process of the cleaning. Well, one could hardly blame a chap for being quick on the trigger when he'd been starved for pleasant company for gods knew how long... all his life, even, however long_that might have been!

It was tempting to carry on... to simply glue her lips to the tip of his cock, wrap the shaft below in her breasts - they were big enough for it - and work the rest with her hands. She longed to sample the dimly-remembered flavor of dragon-cum again - and it would be_particularly_ nice to wash out her mouth with something right now. Problem was... she was fairly certain that she wouldn't be able to handle the deluge that was bound to result when he finally popped. The last dragon she'd encountered had filled her up to capacity, and she rather doubted that he had been storing it up for as long as this poor chap. And trying to make her way back to her chambers while drenched in dragon-jizz was likely to be... problematic.

Thus, she abandoned her work, stepped back where he could see her again, turned around, and fell down on all fours - her tail already lifted in naked invitation. Below it, her sphincter was twitching eagerly, and her labia hung fully-engorged and slightly parted, drooling a steady stream of lubrication that had already stained the coat on her inner thighs dark. Not even the awful taste and penetrating stench of cock-gunk accumulated over countless years had been able to entirely counter the fact that she's had her hands, lips and tongue on a_dragon-cock_. Different from the one she really wanted, sure, but after this long with vigorous fistings as her best option for sexual gratification, it was more than close enough.

"Please, great one..." she called, with no need to fake the eagerness in her voice, "...I have made you ready as you can be - now come, take my unworthy cunt, as deeply and as roughly as you would like!" He was looming over her before she'd even finished talking, chains clinking as he tested their reach. "I would do that whether you asked or not..." he growled from up ahead as his body covered hers. "Small and fragile though you may be, you have asked of me a great sacrifice - and I intend to take my payment therefore in full!" A thrill of sheer lust ran through her at that confident statement. With his rising desires, the dull hopelessness and uncertainty that had bound him as surely as the ensorcelled chains had been burned away - revealing a powerful, confident creature whose mere presence would have had her on her knees with her legs spread even if she hadn't needed anything from him.

His cockhead - which was far more distinct than the tapered tip she remembered from the encounter with her Master - found her welcoming pussy without any trouble. It rubbed against her labia for a second, adding a coating of her free-flowing juices to the saliva that lingered there - then, with a growl, he surged forwards, drawing his chains straight. In a painful, shocking instant, her pussy was stretched as wide as any muscular, mercenary arm had ever managed - while a series of extremely noticeable ripples played across the current top of the orifice, making her rather wish she'd gone for something in the style of 'missionary' position.

A hot, thick, rock-hard mass filled her, driving deep inside her... and then she felt her already strained labia stretch even father, as the knot reached them. Her fingers dug into the ridges between the flagstones as she pushed herself back to meet it, willing her body to accept the thick intrusion, reminiscent of two tightly-clenched fists. Her Master had found her pussy wanting - unable to fit inside entirely, despite her best efforts - but this dragon was_a couple of inches shorter, and she'd had quite a bit of practice thanks to the elbow-deep fistings she'd received from some of her old mercenary buddies. This time, she wouldn't come up short. She'd take_every inch of the dragon's cock, and feel his knot swell inside her. The pain in her labia, which were now threatening to tear altogether, only deepened and accentuated her desire to continue.

With an audible pop, the knot slipped inside, and her labia tightened around the back of it - while deep inside her, she felt his cockhead push against her cervix. A deep groan could be heard above, and then - after a couple of millimeter-short thrusts that lasted maybe two, three seconds - the knot swelled to its full size, filling out her hips completely. The surrounding tissue shrieked in agony as it was suddenly displaced, and she could feel her anus deform into something the shape of a crescent moon as it was forced upwards by the expansion. Her already-strained labia, meanwhile, were stretched outwards, taut around the growing bulge, locking him perfectly in place. Any attempt to pull out would likely rip her pussy apart - but fortunately, the dragon seemed to have no intention to do any such thing.

Instead, he just sighed with relief, and sagged above her as he found release after countless years of enforced celibacy. A flood poured into her womb, pushing open her cervix by sheer force and thickness - more jelly than fluid, driven forwards by an enormous pressure while the whole shaft throbbed and jerked inside her. The first spurt filled her uterus to overflowing - and there were many more behind it, forcing the flexible organ to rapidly expand in order to accommodate it, what with the dragon's knot so splendidly fulfilling its purpose and preventing any backflow. It was agonizing. Her womb and belly strained at every sinew as it ballooned out, making every nerve-ending in the area shriek in protest. It felt like she was being torn apart from the inside out - like any moment now, her belly would explode like a pimple between two dirty nails, creating a similar kind of mess.

She came - over and over again, with such intensity that her vision grew darkened and spotty. The intertwined pain and pleasure, the feeling of overwhelming fullness, it took her back to that day, to another scaly body looming over her. The climaxes she'd suffered back then had defined her life, and nothing that had happened to her since had come close to comparing. Until now. So she came, panting for breath, all four limbs trembling with continuous shocks of orgasmic energy, while a distant part of her mind idly wondered if she'd bitten off more than she could chew - if, in fact, her body could handle these stresses. If not, though... what a way to go! Certainly beat dying in the arena for the amusement of the idle crowd, anyway...

The steady pain radiating out from her swollen midsection was such that she didn't even notice, initially, when the orgasmic deluge ended. The intensity of his first orgasm spent and solidly knotted in place, the dragon sighed in satisfaction and sagged above her - which was her primary clue that he'd actually finished emptying his balls into her far smaller body. The same remote part of her mind which had pondered the maximum tensile strength of her womb earlier now suggested that this would be a good time to say something suitably seductive, perhaps along the lines of "That was delightful, I sure hope you've got a few more of those in you, big boy..." - but overwhelmed as she was by the continued sensations, the best she could manage was a few lusty, yet indistinct moans.

The tie only lasted for some ten minutes - rather less than would generally be the case for a canine - but Melora was hardly in a position to count those minutes. The cum leaked out only in tiny amounts, foaming out around the edges of her taut labia, and thus the pressure - and resulting pain - continued for the full duration, creating a sense of time-dilation when combined with the constant waves of orgasmic bliss that swept through her. The dragon enjoyed the duration almost as much - her heavily inflated womb pressed in on his sensitive cockhead like a rubbery fist, while the rest of her pussy continuously massaged his shaft with regular, orgasmic contractions. So despite her lack of auditory encouragement, he certainly wasn't about to call it quits after just one round...

Finally, his knot shrank completely, returning to the slight bulge it normally was, and he pulled out - pushed, practically, by the intense pressure of the gooey liquid dammed up in front of his tip. The ocean of cum he had injected into her followed him out of the widely-gaping orifice, hitting the floor between her widely-spread legs with a slimy sound, which continued steadily for minutes afterwards. The sheer thickness of his ejaculate effectively prevented her overstrained womb from pushing it out as quickly as it'd like - but it did shrink steadily, and the pain receded along with the orgasms it had brought with her.

As Melora's head cleared and she regained her breath - for the moment - she also found her tongue again. "P...please, great one..." she begged, mind still abuzz with orgasmic aftershocks. "Please, take my ass also... I want to feel you deep inside me..." Her tail was draped along her lower back, vibrating slightly with a determined effort to stay completely out of the way - glued down there by sheer arousal. The dragon didn't trust himself to answer - instead, he just snorted lustily, and raised his steel-hard rod to target a different orifice.

His tip touched her sphincter, pushing gently against it. It parted easily before the slight pressure - well-practiced by now, what with her pussy having been sealed since the start of her enslavement. An inch or so of the dragon's tapered cockhead went inside, stretching the well-used orifice open to a diameter of maybe an inch and a half. She groaned with expectation, and steadied her arms. With an explosive grunt, the dragon surged his hips forwards - impaling her fully in one violent movement, just as he had before. Her sphincter was stretched to full capacity in an instant, while the upper parts of it were teased by the rippling ridges that lined his shaft. Well-used though her ass had become, it hadn't actually welcomed anything larger than a hunting-dog's knot since she was first taken captive - and while lubrication certainly wasn't an issue, the sudden and intense stretching of more than a foot of her intestines was agonizing.

Just the right kind of agonizing - like the inflation of her womb had been before. Better yet, the unprepared condition of her anus had caused the thrust to terminate at the knot - uninflated though it was, the slight bulge it presented was a step too far in that instant. This prevented the dragon from achieving a tie again - and enabled him to fuck her properly this time around. Half his shaft sawed in and out of her ass as he began to thrust steadily, his top-ridges teasing her taut sphincter even more intensely on the way out than on the way in - and every impalement sent renewed flashes of pain through her as her ass once again tried and failed to accommodate the thick bulge of his knot.

Soon, she was cumming again, surging with masochistic pleasure as her ass was plundered by a draconic cock far larger than anything a man of her own tribe could have hoped to wield. Never mind the sheer _force_of the thrusts - the impact of several tons of scaly muscle against her delicate sphincter simply could not be duplicated by even the burliest of human mercenaries. Her pussy deformed under the impacts, flattening as her ass had before, while the thick, gooey cum he had left there was squeezed out in energetic spurts every time his cock slammed home.

She gave voice to her pleasure with panting moans and whinnies, a far shot from the elegant, high-pitched cries she'd learned how to emit when faking orgasms for her less sadistic customers back at the brothel, a lifetime ago. Her spine curled with ecstasy, and soon she was bucking back against the violent thrusts, silently begging the dragon to fuck her even harder, to stretch her even further, to fill her guts with hot, raw pain again! And eventually, she got her wish - under the constant assault and stimulation, her sphincter gradually loosened and relaxed... until finally, the knot popped inside, allowing nearly a handspan more of the huge cock to enter her. That meant another handspan of previously-untouched intestine getting stretched wide, adding a delicious aftershock to the brief, razor-sharp surge of pain that had heralded the knot's entry.

Fortunately, her ass was capacious, as her Master had also discovered to his approval. Unlike her pussy, where the dragon's cock had been left with zero space to move once it had tied with her, her ass still had a few inches to spare. Thus, even once the knot was inside and starting to swell, he could still move - thrusting faster and shorter, now, pulling her sphincter painfully outwards on the backstroke, and flattening her muscular ass-cheeks with his scaly haunches when surging forwards. Bit by bit, her intestines were growing accustomed to the size of the intruder, as they had once before - and the tides of primitive, visceral pleasure rose to meet the more exotic flavor of her masochism, combining and redoubling into something all-consuming...

Had she bothered to count her orgasms to start with, she would have lost count by now. She'd faked pleasure and pain alike at the brothel, then found a shade of real enjoyment once the mercenaries started to fist her regularly, before winding up as a slave - used for the enjoyment of humans who didn't even care enough for her to_need_ to fake anything. In recent months, she'd gotten back into the swing of faking orgasms for the benefit of Quintus, but true_pleasure, like the kind her Master had shown her so long ago, had eluded her ever since. And while this crippled and desperate dragon still wasn't her _true Master, the one her heart yearned for, he was still in the same league, at least - or close enough, anyway, for her starved orifices.

Soon enough, the final part of her earlier prayer was fulfilled, as the dragon reached another orgasm. Needless to say, it was neither as voluminous, nor as viscous as the first one had been - but it was still a thick, hot, dragon-sized load, surging deep into Melora's intestines, filling and stretching them painfully. The rapid-fire thrusts paused long enough for the ejaculation to complete - then immediately resumed, the dragon apparently seeing no reason to just wait quietly for his swollen knot to deflate again. The swift and forceful pace sent waves through the liquid medium of the surrounding sperm, creating a brand-new sensation in the twisting reaches of Melora's guts, even as it whipped the white goo into thick foam, increasing its volume and thus the painful pressure as well.

The ebb and flow of the pain, the primal pleasure radiating from her overstuffed groin, the unfamiliar pressure deep inside her, the endless cavalcade of powerful orgasms - they were all taking a toll on Melora's mind, leaving her drifting away from the life of slavery, humiliation, bloodshed and death that she'd been stuck in for the past couple of years, towards the dreams and frequently-revisited memories that had stayed with her throughout, lending her the strength to go on. From her final weeks in the old village, to her tenure at Madam Boucoup's brothel, through her training with the mercenaries, her harsh stay at the military base as a labor-slave, and even the past months of weapons-practice and combat to the death, they had never abandoned her. Every few nights, she'd find _him_waiting for her in her dreams, ready to rape her, torture her, bend her to his will... and every time she'd wake up with a small pool of love-juices between her legs. The inside of the chastity-belt that now lay discarded beside her was red with rust, as a tribute to those dreams.

And now, it seemed, she had found herself back in those dreams - bodily, this time. As she felt his knot shrink, and he began to pull out - sending a delightful jab of pain through her as her sphincter was once again strained to the limit - something stirred in her mind, and years of time seemed to compress into an instant. "Did I do good, mister dragon?" she slurred, drunk on pleasure, polished respectfulness forgotten, voice warbling as the ridges along his cock's topside played across her sore and worn-red sphincter on the way out. "...I can find no cause for complaint, certainly..." the dragon replied, rather breathlessly, but she did not hear him. She heard another voice instead, an order resounding down through the years, straight from her wettest dreams.

"Get up, my sweet..." it called, as her arms threatened to buckle under her, sore and shaky from maintaining her position. "Turn around..." The voice was vibrant with an eager, hungry sadism - one far different from the petty cruelty she had encountered elsewhere. It resonated with the masochistic desires deep within her soul, pulling at it like a hooked fish. She obeyed it, pushing her tired limbs into cooperation, too dazed to tell that it wasn't coming from above but within. The cock that now dangled before her didn't look quite right, but it was big, hard, and dripping with pink-stained cum, just like it should be. "You must clean my cock, with your tongue..." the voice commanded, and she obeyed - as she had then.

Under any other circumstance, it would have been just one more disgusting, humiliating task for her to push through while keeping a straight face and carefully controlling her gag-reflex. But right now, caught between a years-old memory and hundreds of nights worth of wet dreams, it was an honorable duty - no, a privilege. The ridges along the back of his cock had trapped both cum and quite a bit of bitter ass-slime on the way out, and the white goo that coated the first half of the shaft was dotted, here and there, with suspicious brown flecks - all of which amounted to a predictable scent and flavor. But it didn't matter, not in the least.

In her memories, this was the end-point - pushing herself to carry out her duty despite the fatigue, the pain, the slow drip of blood from her gaping anus and torn labia. She'd done it, and heard her Master's final compliment - then everything went black, black as his gleaming, beautiful scales... and outside of her dreams, that was the last she had seen or heard of him. In those dreams, however, it was never the end - only a beginning, a prelude for pleasures and punishments to come. And she had worked hard, since then - she was no longer a weak, inexperienced child. She'd strengthened her body and trained her orifices - if not necessarily by choice. This time, she would not collapse.

Nor did she. With exquisite care and a lot more enjoyment than when she'd first cleaned this particular rod, she licked off and swallowed every mouthful of goo that clung to the slimy tool - relishing the feeling of the soft, tender tissue hardening under her tongue, its deflation once again belayed. Then she spread her legs for it again. And again. And again. While he never reached the same sheer volume and rapid ejaculation as that first time, the dragon still had many years of sexual neglect to work off - allowing him to reach a grand total of five orgasms over the course of the hour-and-a-half Melora spent in his cell, for all that it seemed far longer to both of them.

The third round was the missionary-style pussy-fucking she'd missed out on earlier - letting his shaft-ripples treat her fully-erect clit roughly, pushing her to yet more deliciously painful orgasms before he lodged his knot between her labia and came. With lessened ejaculate-quantity, her womb was less severely stretched this time - but it was still sore and tender from its earlier mauling, which compensated somewhat, allowing her to fully enjoy the length of the tie, her hands caressing the hot bulge on her normally flat and muscular belly.

Fourth round was back to anal, and back on all fours - but with one key difference. Her sphincter had barely even begun to recover from its earlier mistreatment, just as the load he had deposited within the dank depths of her intestines still hadn't finished oozing its way out. With her ass gaping widely even before the dragon jammed his full length inside her again, the entry proved far easier... including the temporarily deflated knot, which popped past her sphincter with a great deal more ease than before. Fortunately, after so many orgasms, his knot was slow to swell - leading directly to Melora's already raw and sore asshole getting violently pounded by his full length, with the knot sending sharp spikes of agony up her spine every time it slipped back and forth through her anus.

Despite her pleasure-exhausted brain, this torment managed to wrack her tired body with yet another flurry of potent orgasms - leading up to the point where he once again tied with her, and blasted a hot load into her already half-filled intestines. The sense of internal stretching and heat - what with dragon-cum being several degrees hotter than anything a human or regular animal could produce - was significantly stronger than the first time, leading to yet more hoarse, orgasmic whinnies as they waited out the tie. Even so, she was not so far gone by the end of it that she couldn't carry out her duties once more - only far enough gone to completely fail to even notice the metallic flavor of the blood-stained cum.

The fifth and final round went into her mouth - she was too dazed to be careful anymore, too deep in dreams and memories to consider the next step in her plan, but fortunately the magnitude of the dragon's ejaculations had dropped far enough at that point for her to handle it. Her heavy breasts encircled the wet shaft while her hands deftly massaged and milked the lower parts, including the rapidly-swelling knot, and her mouth - stretched to the limit, her jaws aching - just barely managed to encircle the head, teasing and stimulating it as best she could with her tired tongue and tingling lips.

She still couldn't have managed to swallow the sheer quantity of cum that finally burst into her mouth - but fortunately, she didn't need to. During the early months of her enslavement - specifically, while on 'urinal duty', she'd mastered the art of simply relaxing her throat and letting things flow directly down her gullet. Back then, the main advantage had been minimizing the time the intruding liquid spent in contact with her taste buds - which at this point was the main drawback. Still, she was able to subsequently enjoy the warm feeling of her stomach being quite full of hot, gooey dragon-cum - as if she'd just scarfed down a huge bowl of fresh porridge.

It took some five minutes for the dragon to regain his breath, and another five after that for Melora to recover her senses. Her body remained in shaky condition, but she was used to powering through fatigue by now, and quickly got started on all the stuff she hadn't considered while she was busy drowning in raw pleasure. After all, the animal-keepers might be rather surprised to find a huge pool of partially-dried cum lying around in the dragon's cell the next morning - so she had to wipe it all up, not an inconsiderate amount either, using the fortunately decent supply of fresh straw that had been strewn about the cell.

Luckier still, the cell's drain was wide-open - with holes along its edges suggesting that a grate had once been bolted down there, before presumably being removed out of consideration for the size of the resident. After all, a full-grown dragon was hardly going to sneak out through the sewers... and his droppings wouldn't have fit through the grate, either. Nor would the clumps of cum-soaked straw Melora was now dumping down there, in the sincere hope that they clog something deeper inside the arena's extensive sewers, causing some nasty flooding at some point after both she and the dragon had stopped living there. She also squatted over the foul-smelling hole in order to squeeze out what she could of the thick jizz that still filled her womb and intestines alike - much as she enjoyed the sensation of warm fullness, she couldn't risk leaving a trail of slimy droplets behind her when she returned to her chambers.

The dragon watched all this with some bemusement, shaking his head tiredly. "I must confess, I had some doubts about how well you would be able to handle my... pent-up energy," he commented dryly, his previous, phlegmatic temper in appearance once more, "and yet here you are, not only still standing, but working hard to cover your tracks. For what it's worth... the dragon your heart so yearns for would be a fool to pass up such a devoted servant." That was worth quite a bit, at least to Melora, who paused in her labors to flash him a tired but warm smile.

Then, they got down to planning. How would they go about it when they met in the arena? Wouldn't do to make it too quick, after all - that would raise too many suspicions, considering his well-earned reputation for sheer invincibility. And such suspicions could provide an opening for whoever had been working so hard on sabotaging her matches. So, a suitable display would be needed, and one was quickly hashed out - fortunately, they both had more than enough experience with gladitorial matches to have a fairly clear idea of how put on a good show.

Finally, she left the cell - not without regrets, but with more optimism for both her final match and her future in general than she'd felt in a long time. "One last thing..." the dragon called after her as she stepped towards the bars. "A favor I would ask of you, if you can accomplish it... but do not risk yourself for it, on any account. If I cannot escape this hell, then by Takharsis and all the lesser gods, you must!" She heard his plea, nodded, and made the promise he required. She'd do it if she saw the opportunity, unlikely though it seemed, but her first priority was to survive. If she didn't... a dragon would have sacrificed his life in vain.

Then she hurried back along the corridor, wrapped once again in her cloak - which had fortunately been far enough from the energetically erotic encounter to avoid getting soaked - while struggling to move both swiftly and stealthily on her shaky, exhausted legs. She'd already spent a lot longer in the cell that Quintus was likely to have expected. What if he'd decided that she must have gone and gotten herself eaten by now, and no longer waited in the guardroom? She'd be left with no easy way to return to the areas of the arena's underground corridors where she was allowed to be...

Fortunately, once she approached the corner, she could tell he was still there - his voice echoed along the stone walls as he chatted amiably with the caretaker, who sounded suitably starstruck that the highly respected arena-master himself had elected to spend so many hours keeping his lonely self company. A hand around the corner and a quick wave later, an unfortunate accident happened - from the sound of it, Quintus had clumsily tipped over a cup of watered-down wine, splashing it all over the unfortunate animal-keeper. He was very apologetic about it, and the young man was quick to reassure him that it wasn't a big deal at all, really! Oh, he'd hold down the fort for a bit again, while he went and changed into some less wine-soaked clothes? Awful kind of him! He'd be right back!

As soon as the young fellow had dashed out of the guardroom, back towards his quarters, Melora hurried into the room and met Quintus' eyes - angry, with worry hiding beneath them. "Took your sweet time!" he grumbled as she staggered past him, and his sharp eyes didn't fail to notice her unsteady gait. "Did the Beast take a swipe at your leg or something? Is that why it took you so long?" She shrugged as she continued towards the door at the far side - there wasn't time to stop and have a full conversation, if she wanted to avoid running into the young caretaker on the way. "Don't sweat it. I cleaned everything up, no-one will find anything amiss!" She replied in a low voice. "I'll go see the healer tomorrow morning with a good excuse, and be fighting fit in time for the bout." All of which was perfectly true, for once, not that any of it meant what he thought it meant. He nodded gravely, and returned to mopping wine off the table with a handcloth. "I hope it was worth it..." he said quietly as she moved past him. She grinned over her shoulder, showing a mirth she did not, in truth, feel. "Let's just say that I wouldn't place any major bets on my next bout if I was you..."

The crowd had already cheered themselves hoarse. The bout had lasted longer than anyone had imagined. Before she entered the arena, Quintus had told her that quite a few of her fans had protested the day's match-up, complaining about losing their favorite gladiator in such an obviously lopsided bout. The higher-ups hadn't cared, though, and nor had this prevented the tickets from selling out faster than ever before. Supposedly, there'd been a real problem with scalping - some of the last tickets had been sold secondhand for twenty, thirty, even fifty gold according to rumors, and those weren't even seats in the shaded ringside 'luxury' section. Considering that a first-class ticket usually cost ONE gold, and even that was considered expensive, those were some truly outrageous prices. But apparently, they _had_been sold - there didn't seem to be a single empty seat anywhere in the Circus Flavius.

Melora danced aside as yet another clawing strike from the dragon sent the sand flying, and lashed out with her glaive to draw sparks across the unbreakable scales on his chest. No-one limited to the perspective of an audience-member, looking down from high above, could possibly tell that the dragon had been holding back, striking slower than he otherwise might and warning of his attack besides. Neither one of them were paying any attention to the crowd - they watched one another for the signs they'd agreed upon, and acted accordingly. Not that Melora needed to do much signing - she could simply slash at his scales whenever she saw an opening, safe in the knowledge that he'd barely feel her half-hearted attacks through them.

This time, however, the dragon hissed and swayed back from her blow. A signal - one only he could give. One that meant "Let us end this dance." She indicated her agreement by lunging forwards to seize the opening, only to stumble and fall to one knee, panting, obviously exhausted and at her limit. The crowd gasped, holding their collective breaths, and the dragon reared up, roaring in triumph. The waves of primal fear that seemed to flow from a dragon at all times was suddenly stronger, more overpowering, as he raised his head and opened his maws, preparing to strike at his temporarily off-balance foe.

As his head lunged down like a striking viper, she swiftly brought up her glaive, stabbing up with all her might as her hands tightened around the sweat-slicked handle. He could have stopped his attack once he saw the bright steel flash in the sun, or breathed a gout of fire to kill her and destroy her weapon before she could act, or simply snapped closed his maw to take the blow on his scaly chin or snout. Instead, he committed - fatigued, perhaps, by the long bout, his reactions slowed, his fire-breathing made difficult by his heaving lungs, would be the assumption.

With unerring accuracy, the heavy blade at the end of her weapon entered his mouth, and as his head continued to descend, it pushed through the thin bone and unprotected tissue of his palate. She felt the jolt in her hands, heard the barely-audible crunching noise, and then felt the handle being driven through her hands until the pommel struck the sand between her legs. The dragon's head loomed above her, blood dripping from his maw, the light in his eyes already gone - the blade had, as planned, pierced his brains and killed him in an instant. His body collapsed into the sand with a loud thump, then his impaled head followed suit, toppling slowly over on the side and taking her glaive with it.

The arena was silent for several seconds as the audience stared in disbelief. Then a hoarse yet mighty roar rose from the worn-out throats of eighty thousand spectators as they rose to their feet and cheered at this final, incredible reversal from a gladiator who had grown famous for just that sort of victories. Their cheering only redoubled as she briefly rose to her hooves and staggered over to sink to her knees beside the fallen dragon's head, gently closing his empty eyes with two fingers - a sign of respect for a beaten foe who had proven himself worthy of it. Not normally a gesture afforded an animal, but after such a fierce bout and such a surprising victory, nobody was going to complain - especially not since it fit the persona she had established for herself with her occasional showings of mercy for the defeated.

Then, the requisite showing - she could hardly decapitate the dragon, whose scales had hardly grown any less impenetrable in death, but she_could_ pull her glaive clear of his skull with some difficulty, and lift the bloodied blade as she turned in a slow circle to look across the crowded seats of the Circus Flavius one last time. Finally, once the crowd had tired themselves out and fallen back to their seats, she walked out of the arena with an obvious fatigue that wasn't entirely feigned. She rather pitied whoever was supposed to go on for the next bout. Tears stung in the corners of her eyes, but they could wait until she had a private moment.

Melora tugged uncomfortably on the sleeve of her dress. She wasn't used to dresses, to say the least - the closest she'd come was the 'uniform' she'd worn back at the brothel, and there just hadn't been all that much of it. This, however, was supposedly the height of Remulian fashion at the moment - hurriedly modified to fit her, as the tailor had so diplomatically put it, 'statuesque figure'. It was a toga-style dress that left her left shoulder and arm bare, along with a not-insignificant portion of her left breast, but otherwise it covered most of her light-brown coat without managing to disguise her curves in the slightest. Still, it would take some getting used to.

As would her reddish-brown mane, which had been braided and intricately styled by a pair of dexterous servant-girls, who'd giggled and gossiped their way through the task. Among the tidbits they'd eagerly whispered to her was the amusing fact that generally, when victorious gladiators were brought into the palace for their traditional celebratory banquet with the Emperor himself, the beautification-treatment they underwent in order to make them presentable to the empire's upper crust included oiling up any exposed skin, of which there usually was quite a bit. Such gleaming, well-defined muscles tended to be quite a hit with the court's ladies... and a much fought-over duty for the serving-girls who got to do the actual oiling.

But that particular detail had been sensibly dropped tonight - indeed, any number of traditions had been modified for the occasion. This was, after all, the first time that a visiting gladiator had been a woman... or a nonhuman... or a nonhuman woman. Needless to say, the court was abuzz with debate about how to handle such a situation. The traditional banquet was meant to honor a man who had distinguished himself through great martial skill - not a beast-woman who'd originally been thrown into the ring as a runaway slave meant for a dramatic execution! Some seemed to feel that the tradition should, in this case, have been foregone, and the embarrassing symbol of non-human skill and power that she represented hurriedly sent packing... or just disposed of.

There_were_ prior instances of condemned prisoners and slaves winning their freedom in this fashion, however - not a great number of them, but enough. There was a romance to them, a captivating rags-to-riches story of overcoming adversity and triumphing against impossible odds. The public loved those stories, which probably explained part of Melora's following, once it had become clear that she had a real shot of making it to that hundreth victory. The fact that she'd slain a dragon in her final bout simply made for the perfect finale of a grand tale - and the banquet was the highly necessary denouement for that story. Tens of thousands of citizens - her adoring fans - had escorted her to the palace gates, and even in here, behind the thick stone walls, the sounds of the far more raucous banquet they were throwing on the plaza in front of those gates could be faintly heard.

Regardless, she was here. Frankly, she would just as happily have accepted a ticket for the next carriage out of the Empire and a pat on the back, but since those traditions had allowed her to win her freedom, it would probably be wise to play along with them 'till the end. Already, the primary benefit of the visit had been provided - after all, a dull iron collar wouldn't have set off her new dress very well. The symbol of her enslavement had thus been removed, rather deftly, by the sneering Court Wizard - who had, she'd noticed, been wearing an expression as if he'd been scraping something unpleasant off his shoe. Clearly, it was a task he performed only under strict orders... but perform it he had.

Thus, legally and officially, she was free. Quite possibly the only free non-human in the Remulian Empire at the moment, considering that they didn't even accept diplomatic envoys or embassies from nonhuman kingdoms. A distinction, needless to say, that she would rid herself of as soon as convenient... with little more than a regretful thought for Quintus, who'd sent her off for her big night with a pat on the back and a reminder to at least try to have fun. So it went. The encounter with the dragon - both in his cell and in the arena - had made the fire in her heart burn brighter than ever. Next to that, Quintus' kindness and unspoken yet obvious feelings for her were naught but a flickering shadow.

The murmur in the banquet-hall fell instantly silent as she stepped through the door. Every eye in the room was on her, and she fully returned the favor - looking over these men and women who ruled an empire built on slavery, fear, and bloodsport. She met their eyes, and looked through them, seeking what lay beyond. In many, she saw only a dull kind of greed and lust - a simple, childish desire to obtain anything and everything that their sweaty paws could grasp. For them, the Empire's policy of human supremacy was simply a useful excuse, putting them above a certain group of 'others' whose property could thus be stolen... or they made property themselves. All they saw when they looked at her was an attractive thing. She swayed her hips as she walked past them, flaunting her well-toned body - she, at least, was no longer property. However much they could buy, borrow or steal, they couldn't have her.

Others glared at her with bug-eyed hatred - and behind that, she spied a lingering fear, and a smoldering anger that was directed more at_that fear than at her. These were the weaklings - at least in their own minds - who were terrified of the power of nonhumans. The strength of the orc, the endurance of the dwarf, the intellect and magical aptitude of the elf... they lacked all these, and were acutely aware of it. So of course, they'd seized on the Remulian ethos with gusto. It was easier to just endlessly repeat that they_were superior to all nonhumans, after all, than to actually put in the hard work required to better themselves. She met their eyes unblinkingly, and found some satisfaction in watching them flinch ever-so-slightly as she drew nearer.

The ones she found most disturbing, however, looked at her with anger and confusion - behind which, nothing at all seemed to lurk. They were... drones, puppets, parroting the party line, accepting the claims of human superiority as fact without any examination. Thinking was hard, so instead, they just went with the flow, riding the coattails of the strong. To them, all she represented was a disruption in their nice, neat, orderly reality. A disturbance that would hopefully soon go away so that they could go back to knowing how everything worked. Those, she could only ignore. What was the point of taunting such empty shells, after all?

Finally, she reached her designated place at the high table - the seat of honor, at the Emperor's right hand. Not so honorable, of course, that a pair of twitchy-looking bodyguards weren't standing right behind his chair, and thus hers - with their hands resting on the hilt of their swords, ready to act if the 'guest of honor' tried anything stupid. As she approached, he rose to greet her - sticking meticulously to the traditional exchange, including offering her a handshake without any apparent hesitation.

As she took his hand, she studied him intently - this, after all, was the man at the top, the one who ruled this whole degenerate place, whose hand fed all the greedy and hateful beasts that filled this room. She'd seen him before, of course, many times - but he looked different, when she wasn't looking up at him from the arena sands. Plain, almost. Just an ordinary kind of guy, perhaps a bit vain, considering his carefully feathered dark-brown hair - and his features were certainly fine, the kind that'd look good on a marble bust. All the same, if she'd walked past him on the street in any of the human cities she'd lived in, she wouldn't have given him a second look.

Except for his eyes. She'd grown quite good at reading people's eyes - a skill she'd started developing during her early days as a prostitute, before she found Madam Boucoup's brothel, when she had to vet her own clients and try to tell the regular perverts from the ones that got their jollies cutting up whores. Since then, she'd grown to rely on it - using it to tell who among the mercenaries she could count on to watch her back and who was likely to break and panic if things got heated, spotting soldiers who were in a bad mood during her enslavement at the base, and of course reading her opponents in the arena. But this man... his eyes were perfectly opaque. They showed nothing, revealed nothing - just another part of a perfectly painted facade. And that, she realized, was far scarier than any open hatred or lust-tinged greed...

Moments later, she was seated beside him - and found that save for the bodyguards looming threateningly behind her, they were surrounded by a respectful circle of distance. Nobody wanted to crowd the emperor_or_ the dragon-slaying gladiator, it seemed. And once the servants started to carry in the plates bedecked with myriad delicacies, the tense air in the room began to dissolve, and a certain din of chatter and chomping began to rise. Melora was surprised to find a delicious-looking bowl of mixed salad, along with a piping-hot vegetable-pie land on the table before her, and was soon digging in with aplomb. The food in the gladitorial quarters had always been filling and nutritious - but 'flavorful', 'colorful' and 'aromatic' were not adjectives usually associated with that fare.

"I see you prefer vegetables over meat, just as I had heard..." the Emperor commented as she maneuvered a second slice of the pie unto her plate, along with another generous pile of mixed greens from the salad-bowl. His voice was pitched low and quiet, audible to her but unlikely to carry through the general noise to any other ears... save, again, for the presumably highly loyal bodyguards. She quickly raised her eyes from her plate to once again meet those silent eyes of his, every bit as expressionless now as they'd been when he'd shook her hand. Swallowing the last bite of her first plateful, she raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you by chance customize the menu according to that information, your imperial majesty?" she ventured, keeping her own voice low as well. His smile was as bland and empty as his eyes when he nodded. "But of course. This banquet is in your honor, so what kind of host would I be if I failed to offer at least some dishes that might suit your... special preferences."

She carefully analyzed the picture-perfect facade before her. It felt like she was facing a fully-armored knight in the arena, decked out in so much steel plate that not an inch of skin was showing, let alone his eyes. An impenetrable defense. But every armor had its chinks - you just had to nudge the wearer into moving in a way that might expose them. A conversation could be a duel, just as surely as an arena-bout could - and when you were conversing with an Emperor, the stakes could be just as high. "Indeed..." she said slowly, carefully weighing her words. "I suppose I am merely surprised at your personal involvement, your imperial majesty. I assumed you had... people who handled such bothersome details for you."

Hardly a daring assault, but when you're facing an unfamiliar opponent, it was usually a good idea to start with some light feints in order to test his reach - and temper. The Emperor did not immediately reply to this light, yet perfectly polite needling, merely considering her thoughtfully for a couple of minutes - which she took advantage of to scarf down another couple of bites of the delicious vegetable pie. Wouldn't do to let it get cold on her plate, after all. Finally, just as she swallowed, he sighed. "Fencing with words... is a field in which I have great skill. But for that exact reason, I tend to avoid engaging in it when I don't need to. And from what I'm gathering... this isn't one of those cases. For starters, while not without talent, your form is clearly that of an amateur when it's a fork and not a glaive that's in your hand." His previously bland voice had suddenly developed a cold, cutting tone, and as she once again met his eyes, she saw something there for the first time.

It was like a mirror of ice. Cold, dispassionate, calculating - almost inhuman in their complete lack of emotions. Apparently, he'd decided to peel off his mask for her benefit, though why still eluded her. Nor was she entirely certain of how she was supposed to react to something like that. After a moment's thought, she settled on 'blase'. "Well, I do apologize if my banqueting-form isn't up to snuff, your imperial majesty..." she declared airily, gesturing with her fork. "I'm afraid I've gotten rather less practice with said fork than I have with my glaive. An oversight of the gladitorial training-program, I'm sure."

He smiled coldly at her joke, then sighed again. "You really _were_just fighting for your freedom, weren't you? To think I've wasted so much time trying to counter what I perceived to be a rival's attempt to undermine my position. No wonder my spies never managed to uncover any connections between you or any of the likely names." Shaking his head sadly at this waste of effort, he speared a chunk of some kind of well-roast bird from his plate and ate it with mechanical precision, giving no indication that he was even tasting it.

Melora, meanwhile, narrowed her eyes. "So... it was you who kept trying to get me killed in the arena?" she asked, forgetting the 'majestys' for once. "I'd considered it, but I honestly couldn't see why I could possibly be worth the direct attention of the Emperor himself... at least not at first." The Emperor in question grinned humorlessly at her, the smile never reaching his ice-cold eyes. "Ah, of course... you'd assume I had people who took care of such trifles for me, yes? Well, I do not expect this knowledge to ever become useful to you, but being an emperor means that you've got a million people who are happy to do things for you, and zero people you can trust to do those things for you. You have to set people to watch those people who are executing your orders, lest they slip their own into the pile - but, ah, how do you know you can trust the watchers?" The sigh that followed sounded like it almost had some actual emotion behind it. "Frankly, if I'd known how much work it was, I might not have taken this damn job in the first place."

Well, at least he wasn't ordering her executed for lese majeste on account of forgetting her modes of address, she thought as she quickly tried to rally her thoughts. Blaming him for his repeated attempts to fatally end her win-streak seemed... a waste of time. Not only was there nothing she could do to him, but it was also abundantly clear that it hadn't been anything personal. Honestly, she doubted that he'd ever done anything for personal reasons. Regardless, if he was telling her all of this... "So, is there something I can possibly do to lighten that workload for you, your imperial majesty?" she ventured. "I assume you would otherwise have cut this whole conversation out of it..."

He looked at her for a couple of seconds with something vaguely resembling grudging acknowledgment. "You really are quite a bit more clever than most give you credit for, aren't you?" he mused, then nodded sharply. "There is indeed. The arena-system - I do not know if you noticed as much from inside of it, but it is a key part of what keeps the empire peaceful. It provides entertainment for the masses, along with a constant reminder of what happens to those who step out of line. Keeps the sheep quiet and moving along between shearings - worried that if they bray too loudly, they'll either miss the next performance, or wind up _part_of it."

"The system is carefully designed and finely tuned..." he continued, while cutting another bite-sized square from the chunk of bird-meat on his plate with near-surgical precision. "...and, to put it bluntly, people like you simply aren't supposed to happen. We get nonhumans in the arena regularly, you know. Sometimes, they volunteer, thinking that their advantages will secure them an easy victory. We've had half-orcs, dwarves, a couple of drow, even a few full-blooded orcs on occasion. Well, I suppose you already knew that - after all, you worked with some of them, before they found their way to the Circus. And died there, as they all do."

She nodded, slowly, careful not to let her anger show. The mercenaries hadn't been the best sort of people, and few of them had shown her any kind of respect, but some - including one of the half-orcs and a dwarf - had at least been reasonably gentle and considerate towards her own needs. She didn't much care for the idea that they'd fallen prey to the same kind of tricks and traps she'd so narrowly avoided. "I'm surprised you're actually willing to refer to us as 'people', your imperial majesty..." she replied somewhat coldly, and he snorted dismissively in response, rolling his eyes. "Oh, please... surely I don't look that stupid. Though if I did, I suppose I could take it as a compliment on my skills at dissembling. The whole 'human superiority' line is a convenient banner and a solid rallying-cry - it's also obviously a lie, but one of the great secret of politics is that it's usually easier to sell a big lie to the people than a small one.Obviously, the other races are still 'people', and they all have advantages over us in one area or another - hence why it's necessary to counter those advantages with a bit of trickery now and again. The important thing, in the end, is simply to give the people - my people - a clear and obviously-threatening 'other' that they can fear and thus define themselves as being against. Now, if we can put that aside and get to the point..."

She made a suitable sort of throwing-away gesture, even as she filed his statement away for future use. How many members of his government were 'in' on that detail? Was he the only one who realized that the whole thing was just an act? Or were there others, too, going through the motions of decrying, enslaving and executing nonhumans just for the sake of maintaining peace and unity within the empire? If so, she frankly preferred the ones who'd swallowed the party-line hook, line and sinker - at least they were _honest_in their hateful stupidity...

"Good, then - back on track." He said calmly, the exasperation that had been steadily growing as he expounded on the lie that bound his empire together vanishing in an instant. "The arena-system is, as I said, an important part of the social foundations of the empire. Including the part where it allows the people to regularly watch nonhuman gladiators get cut down by human ones, and not the other way around. Someone like you, pushing through the traditional 'hundred bouts' and winning your freedom - it goes against the narrative. It may make people think about the lies they're being fed. And I can't have that. Now, your_little narrative is over and done with. I can spin it as the exception that confirms the rule - especially since your species is so obscure and largely unknown. But I need to know _how you subverted the system, if it wasn't thanks to the sponsorship of some over-ambitious rival of mine! After all, if you did it, some other nonhuman could do it too - and if it happens repeatedly, the consequences could be dire..."

She nodded slowly, finally understanding why he'd bothered to strike up conversation and discarded his politely opaque mask in favor of swiftly cutting to the chase. She certainly had thinks she could give him... but how much was she really willing to trade away? She would already be leaving Quintus broken-hearted when she betrayed him and left. Should she send him to the headsman, too, and thus at least cut his heartache short? Well... a lot depended on what, exactly, she'd be trading him for. "I see... but you seem to have left out the question of why I would feel disposed to assist you in such a fashion, your imperial majesty?" She coyly asked, breaking eye-contact to take another scoop of the salad. The pie was starting to cool, but the raw vegetables were still crisp and crunchy.

Out the corner of her eye, she saw him flash another cold smile. "I_have_ read your... 'file', for lack of a better word, you know." He said evenly. "The original report stated that you were a simple laborer and prostitute attached to a mercenary band, but considering your performance since, it's abundantly clear that you simply were one of the mercenaries, and that their leader somehow managed to lie about it in the hopes of sparing you the trip to the arena. I'm sure the irony in that isn't lost on you... but I digress. You were a mercenary, and perhaps now that you are free, you are a mercenary once more, hmm? I'm sure there's somewhere you'd rather be right now than in my empire, and if you want to leave, you'll need gold. By the weight of tradition, you will get to keep your signature weapon when you leave the arena - but nothing else. The armor you wore is the property of the Circus Flavius, and since you were fighting as a slave throughout, you are not entitled to any share in the money you earned for the Circus. If you walk out of there with the clothes on your back, it is only out of some mixture of generosity and pity."

He shrugged, then, with the superior mannerism of someone who knew he'd cornered his foe. "Whether you'd care to buy a carriage-ticket, or armor and supplies with which to travel - or even a horse, strange sight though that would be - you will need money. And I, being an Emperor, have quite a lot of it to offer." She glanced sideways at him and returned the shrug with one of her own. "Well, I could always just stick around for another week or two, your imperial majesty. I'm sure I'd be able to draw quite the crowd as a free gladiator too, and thus make enough coin for some basic supplies..." That was the best plan she'd been able to come up with for handling that particular conundrum, at least. That, or selling her newly-earned glaive to a collector, which wasn't an idea she cared much for. Still, she rather suspected that neither option had escaped the coldly cynical man sitting beside her.

Indeed, it had not, and his smile now showed just a hint of viciousness. "Ah, well, you could do that..." he admitted. "But it would be rather risky. You see, by our laws, you aren't a person - no matter how obviously ridiculous that is. While you were a slave, you were property, and protected as such - injuring you would be damaging something that belonged to the Circus Flavius, and the guards would take issue with that. Now that you're free, though, you're technically an outlaw. If someone were to attack, injure, or even kill you, it wouldn't be a crime - any more than throwing a rock at a stray dog is. And loud though your 'fans' are outside, I'm sure you realize that there are other, quieter people who take quite a lot of issue with your victory, and would dearly love to 'correct' this slip-up of the arena-system with their own hands."

He continued to cut and eat his dinner with aggravating casualness as he described her probable fate, should she stick around in Remul for much longer. "Now, your fierce reputation will no doubt be some_deterrence, at least as long as you keep your glaive handy - but sooner or later, some combination of numbers and strong drink will wear away their fear. And, I hasten to add, should you injure a human in the course of such unpleasantness, that _would be a crime, and would swiftly see you imprisoned, enslaved - and likely back in the arena, to try your luck at another one hundred bouts." She couldn't resist glaring at him for a moment. Then she sighed, and nodded. As expected.

"Make me an offer." She said, once again leaving out the honorifics. Odds were, he didn't give a good goddamn when nobody else was listening, anyway. Having to keep referring to him by title was just inefficient, and he clearly detested inefficiency. His quiet smile seemed to confirm this estimation. "I happen to have a small sack of gold with me tonight, actually. 100 pieces of it, to be exact. Yours, in return for naught but a short conversation - and enough to buy you a ticket directly to one of our northern neighbors." Her eyes narrowed as he cited this figure. 100 gold was a lot of money. More than she'd ever owned before. It'd buy her a ticket, all right, and with enough left over to replace the armor she lost when she was captured. And that would... just about leave her back where she was a year ago, wouldn't it? Economically, anyway.

"Nice try..." she answered dryly. "I've been a whore and a mercenary in my life, but I've never been a cheap one. You can do better than that. In fact, you're basically just testing me, aren't you?" This actually brought a brief smile to his narrow lips. "Ah, you caught me! Inexperienced though you may be at banquet-hall fencing, you clearly know your way around a bout of marketplace bartering... fine, then. FIVE hundred gold - that is_genuinely_ the best I can do if you want your money tonight. I may theoretically have a vast fortune at my disposal, but siphoning off coin for these kinds of stealthy transactions is neither easy nor cheap."

Now_that_ was genuinely a lot of money, she pondered. Whether he was actually telling the truth about it being as high as he was capable of going without intolerable delays, well, that was another matter. Still, it probably wasn't so high that she couldn't play one more card. "I'll take it... but I won't name any names." She answered in clipped tones. "I shan't send anyone to the headsman for five hundred, but I WILL tell you how I was able to subvert them." The Emperor seemed to consider this for a moment, as he emptied his plate and leaned back. Immediately, servants began to circulate, taking it as a sign to move on to the next set of dishes. He waited until they'd finished removing the plates and dishes, then continued under the cover of the quiet conversation that broke out around the tables as everyone eagerly awaited the dessert-dished. "You drive a hard bargain. Still... acceptable. Enlighten me, by all means."

Smiling narrowly, she gathered her thoughts and marshaled her words. "I won't ask how you would feel about it - you're clearly an unusual sort - but the average man would be mortified to be caught naked in, say, the middle of a marketplace. But being caught naked by a dog? A horse? There is no reason to feel ashamed by that,_is there?" She began, trying to put into words the overall strategy that had allowed her to seduce Quintus - hoping to couch it in enough generalities that the emperor would assume that she'd been helped by a _variety of lower-placed individuals rather than the arena-master himself. "Now, nakedness aside, there's plenty of things that makes people feel ashamed. Dark desires, perverted fetishes, things they'd hesitate to even share with a professional prostitute, less she gossip about it with her friends and it somehow reaches the wrong ears. But what if there was an animal - an animal with a woman's body, who could understand your words and who would happily accede to your requests? Someone you could live out those desires with, without feeling ashamed - and without worrying about it getting around. After all, even if she talked, who would take the word of an animal over the word of a man?"

The emperor sighed. "I see. You essentially took advantage of the very speciesism that lies at the foundation of the Empire. Because they didn't see you as a 'person', they were willing to expose their dark secrets to you - and you could then use those secrets to seduce them. You wouldn't even have to pressure them, would you? Once the relationship is established, they have a vested interest in keeping you alive, lest they lose their 'outlet' - slipping you hints about traps, or 'accidentally' bungling the execution of one." Grimacing, he shook his head slightly. "I would ask how many people within the arena could possibly harbor forbidden desires for you to use... but I know better than that. I suppose the better question is how many of those desires you are equipped to cater to..."

From the sounds of it, it had worked. Well, unless he was just _pretending_to go along with her narrative, thus ensuring that she wouldn't try to warn Quintus before he could... gah! She couldn't afford to start second-guessing herself. She was dealing with a dangerously intelligent and clearly ruthless individual, but all she could do was the best she could do. So she simply grinned at him, injecting more amusement into her smile than she really felt. "No names, as I said... but you'd be surprised! My past experiences have provided me with a wide array of skills, and a strong stomach."

Their conversation paused again as the desserts were carried in. She didn't recognize any of them. Such decadent sweets hadn't existed in her home village, nor had she ever wasted money on those kinds of treats when she'd been living in the human cities. Still, they _looked_delicious, and the smell was mouth-watering. "No vegetables in these, I'm afraid..." the emperor interjected, his blank facade briefly back in place as the servants deposited platters and bowls before him. "But I hear that you've no problem with cream or eggs, which I believe is the main ingredients in most of these?"

Indeed, she did not, and she happily dug into the unknown dishes. From the sound of it, she'd be leaving tonight, and it would be a long trip - so probably best to make sure she was well-fed, especially when the food was free. "Ah, but what about the _dragon?"_the Emperor asked as she spooned something sweet and fluffy into her mouth, his mask dropping again. "I can imagine that someone tipped you off about what you'd be up against, certainly - but there was no indication that it had been tampered with, not that dragons are susceptible to poisons and drugs in general." Putting down her spoon, she swallowed and considered her next move. This was the opening, she decided - and now that her own interests had been served, it was time to fulfill a promise.

"Well, now... that bit of information wasn't included in our deal. But I'll tell you what... pay me for that last bit of info, right now, and I'll give you a bargain on this one. Heck, if you're half as clever as you seem to think you are, you'll probably be able to turn my asking-price to your own advantage..." The Emperor raised one delicately-shaped eyebrow at this reply, then sighed. "I suppose it'd be foolish to expect you to trust me. Still, I hasten to remind you that this is all the coin I've easily available, so your 'bargain' best not include any more immediate expenses." As he spoke, he made a sharp, covert gesture with his left hand, beneath the table where it wouldn't be visible from the front. One of the looming bodyguards discreetly bent forwards, and deposited a heavy leather purse in her lap.

She carefully opened it while pretending to look over the dishes lined up before her, and checked the contents. Gold and platinum gleamed within. Five hundred worth? Probably, or close enough - she honestly didn't have enough experience with coins of that denomination to easily tell. Regardless, she'd been paid, and that much gold would certainly see her far. "Not immediate, no, and the expenses associated won't have to be funneled anywhere..." she replied glibly as she quickly closed the purse again. Concealing it on the way out would be a challenge... but at times like these, there were advantages to having a capacious cleavage.

The Emperor nodded impatiently. "Well? Let me hear it - the desserts won't last forever, and afterwards I'll be expected to 'mingle', so there won't be any more opportunities for quiet conversation." Smiling slightly, she nodded. "Very well. All I'm asking is that the dragon be interred with full gladiatorial honors - like any free man who've fallen in that arena would. And that you put his name on the gravestone. His name, incidentally, was Smaragnus." He had told her as much as they parted, when he made that last request - that his name be remembered and not forgotten. The Emperor's brow wrinkled, and his eyes narrowed. "Turning such a thing to my advantage... not impossible, certainly, but I'll have to word the public declaration quite carefully. Regardless, we have a deal... though I think I see part of it already, just from that request."

Melora nodded. "Indeed. You seem to have forgotten, somehow, that dragons are people too. Proud, intelligent people. Thanks to my other contacts, I was able to smuggle myself into his cell before the bout, and... well, talk to him. I offered him the respect he'd been denied for so long, established a rapport, and then... convinced him that the life he had here, robbed of the skies and treated as an animal, locked in a filthy cell every day, wasn't one worth living." The Emperor stared at her, then chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. "You convinced a dragon to commit suicide for your benefit? Well. Quite the accomplishment, to be sure. And may I just compliment you and him for the fine performance you put on in the arena? I've rarely seen such stellar acting!"

She gave him a gracious nod, though her smile was a touch stiff. "Thank you. We both worked very hard on it. Of course, he isn't here to hear your critique, and I doubt he'd care much for it if he was - so perhaps you're better off repaying his performance with a very nice gravesite." The Emperor shrugged, a smile that bordered on genuine twisting his lips. "Oh, it will have to be that regardless. And for the record, I've never thought of dragons as being animals. Not animals, no. Monsters, yes. Large, dangerous monsters, driven by greed and bloodlust. And I suppose I somewhat forgot, in that regard, that they are people too, and thus prone to the failings of people - such as pride, passion, and suicidal tendencies. I can only thank you for providing me with this reminder. A bargain indeed..."

Nodding casually, she returned her attention to her plate, and spooned another generous dollop of something cold and smooth onto it. Perhaps the sweet desserts would help her get rid of the bitter taste in her mouth. She had the money she'd need to escape this accursed empire and continue her search, she'd fulfilled her promise to Smaragnus, and as far as she knew she hadn't sold out Quintus - leaving him alive to feel betrayed when she failed to return to the arena as promised. Still... while she couldn't see how he'd actually go about closing the cracks she'd slipped through, she'd clearly _somehow_helped a ruthlessly calculating man maintain and strengthen his grip on the empire. Alas, no amount of desserts was likely to get _that_taste out of her mouth...

"Hey, Melora! Been a while!" The cheerful, sandy-haired young man said as he slumped down on the chair opposite her, flashing her a friendly grin over the ancient, beer-stained bar-room table. She nodded in acknowledgment, returning the smile in a more subdued form. "Indeed it has, Sunny. Nice to see you're still kicking." Cyril 'Sunny' Sauremont was one of the first adventure-team leaders she'd worked with, and he'd been a good one - plus, he was a 'finger on the pulse' kind of guy, so she always had a smile to spare for him.

He sucked on his lower lip. "Yeah... close thing, though. Our last run went south, ya know? Our new heavy lost his head, charged in screaming instead of sticking to support-range. Last we saw of him, he was getting buried under a couple dozen zombies. Nyana took a nasty cut while we escaped - from what turned out to be a poisoned blade. She's still recovering, but the healers say she'll make it." Melora frowned and nodded sympathetically. 'She'll make it' was code for 'maybe she'll be fine, maybe there'll be some permanent damage, maybe she'll be a useless wreck'. "Tell her I said to pull herself together and walk it off, yeah?" She said with a lopsided grin. That's what you did in this business, after all. Anything along the lines of "I hope you don't wind up crippled for life" just smacked of defeatism. Sunny grinned and nodded. "I'll be sure to do that next time I check in on her. Might just make her jump outta bed just to come over here and kick your magnificent ass."

They shared a laugh, then he sighed and shook his head. "I tell ya, I really wish you'd been there. Probably would have ended a lot different if you had. You're one of the most level-headed people I've ever met - I bet you don't even know how to panic!" She shrugged, feigning a humble smile. "Eh, I'll figure it out one of these days, I'm sure... anyway, you know my rules. I don't like to be chained down. If you need me for a run or two, I'm currently available, but I'm not going to join your team, or any team, full-time."

Sunny nodded, a resigned look on his face. "Knew you'd say it, had to try anyway..." he commented with a shrug. Indeed, all the local adventurers knew her deal by now. She wasn't the 'lone wolf' type, but she also refused to devote herself to any single group of adventurers. Instead, she'd join various teams who needed an extra blade for a run or two, then wander off with her share of the loot and a friendly farewell. If pressed, she told them that it was due to her past as a slave - that she enjoyed her freedom too much to let herself get tied down to anything, not even something as inherently loosely-organized as an adventuring team. It didn't have anything to do with how well or how poorly she was treated... though, needless to say, if she felt belittled on account of her species, she certainly wasn't going to join up with that particular team again!

In truth, it was part of her strategy. By constantly jumping between teams, she made a wide variety of contacts - casting a wide net, and thus increasing her odds of getting something useful out of one of them. Adventurers, as she'd discovered, gossiped worse than hairdressers. A rumor about a monster harassing some remote village, or about mysterious disappearances somewhere, or perhaps about some well-funded individual who'd expressed an interest in some random piece of ancient bric-a-brac, could all wind up being the start of another profitable adventure, after all.

"Still, it's nice to know you're available." Sunny said, before pausing to grin lecherously up at the barmaid as she swayed by to deposit a foaming mug of ale in front of him. "Your usual, pretty-boy..." she said, sing-song, and he patted her on the behind as he threw her a couple of coppers. Sunny had a thing for behinds, she'd noticed. He'd made any number of complimentary comments about _hers_during their past adventures together, and made it perfectly clear that he'd love to get to know her - and her rear end in particular - better. But he'd also accepted it when she told him that she wasn't interested, which had earned him quite a lot of respect from her. Not that he'd stopped flirting with her or bringing up her bottom whenever the chance offered itself, of course, but that much she didn't really mind...

"...but we probably aren't going anywhere until Nyana's recovered." he continued, leaving the implied 'or we know she's not going to' unsaid. Then he grinned again. "Besides, I have a feeling you're about to not be available anymore anyway." She raised an eyebrow at that, and leaned over to put her elbows on the table, which creaked dangerously under her weight. "Indeed? Am I to understand that you had some reason for sitting down at my table beside just shooting the bull?" Sunny nodded, grin widening. "Indeed! See, it occurs to me that I still owe you a favor or two from the last time we teamed up - some minor detail about you holding me by the collar with one hand while I dangled over a spiked pit, while simultaneously fending off a small army of goblins with the other, I think."

She returned his grin, while allowing herself to put on a dreamy expression. "Ah yes. Good time, that was. I eventually_managed to get all of their blood out of my coat, and it was an excellent workout for my left bicep, despite your skinny frame." He barked a laugh, retorting - as he always did - "I'm not skinny, I'm _wiry!" They shared a laugh at that well-worn internal joke, before his face grew slightly more serious. "Yeah, you definitely saved my life that time - and it wouldn't have been a pleasant death either, considering what those spikes had been coated with, judging by the smell. And while that isn't really something I can repay... I do have some information you may be interested in."

"What_kind_ of information?" She asked cautiously, trying not to let herself get optimistic. He waggled his eyebrows. "Well! If memory serves, you have a bit of a thing about dragons, don't you?" Nodding slowly, she carefully assumed a vicious, narrow-eyed smile. "Oh yes, I think you can safely say that..." It had been an obvious approach, really. People became adventurers for all kinds of reasons, but some were more common than others. When she told people that she'd set out on her journey after a black dragon visited the bucolic little village she grew up in, they all nodded sagely and asked no further questions - assuming, of course, that they knew the rest. Between that and her reputation as a tried-and-true dragonslayer - what with her performance in the arenas of Remulia soon making the rounds in the adventurer gossip-circles - people made the obvious assumption when she told them that she was highly interested in any news about dragons in general, black dragons in particular, and a black dragon with a rider_in _particular particular. Obviously, she was looking for_vengeance,_ no? Certainly, that narrative was a whole lot easier for them to swallow than the truth could ever be, and all she really had to do was to selectively tell the truth while putting on an appropriate face.

Sighing, Sunny shook his head. "I swear, the mere mention of the scaly beasts, and you start loosing your cool... 's about the only thing that seems able to do so, really. Well, it's not like you're alone in that, which is what I wanted to tell you about! I've heard some interesting rumors, y'see, about a whole gang of adventurers, mercenaries and other tough types who've banded together for the express purpose of hunting down as many dragons as they can. They call themselves The Dragon-Slayers, which suggests that _creativity_isn't a requirement for joining. Real high-level types all, apparently - including a famous Paladin of the Allfather, a small force of Mimbrate knights - who are supposedly pissed off that a dragon warned off some orcs they'd been getting ready to trample, or so I've heard - and even, if rumors are to be believed, the famous Amazonian Warrior, Arthenia! She went missing some years back, a while before that orcish invasion hit Karistad - assumed dead, seeing as she didn't resurface to chase off the greenskins... but either she's still kicking, or somebody's using her name, which wouldn't be a first I guess. Seems to happen every time a big-name adventurer kicks the bucket, y'know?"

He paused for a moment, shooting an annoyed glance over his shoulder at a neighboring table where four adventurers had just settled down with a truly monstrous amount of food, and were now playfully fighting over it. A young priestess, a shady fellow concealed in a hooded green robe, a tall, blond swordsman, and a short, flat-chested redhead that Melora vaguely recognized as a notoriously hot-tempered Battlemage. Whether to avoid being overheard, or just to be _heard_over their loud arguments, Sunny leaned conspiratorially over the table - helpfully stabilizing it in the bargain - while Melora swiftly put their loud neighbors out of her mind, eagerly absorbing the information he was spilling.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn't stop her heartbeat from accelerating. There was no mention of black dragons or riders in what she'd just heard, but for some reason, it just felt right. Like this was the break she'd been waiting for. "It sounds like these folks are in a league of their own - they're literally raiding dragonhomes, if you can believe it!" Sunny continued, wide-eyed, pitching his voice just loud enough to be heard over the din. "But you've got proven dragonslaying chops, right? And they aren't exactly beating off candidates with a stick, either - most adventurers are steering well clear of them despite the promise of a fair share of any dragon-hoards they seize, what with their mission-statement literally involving hunting dragons into extinction, which is a bit more than most of us sensible, live-and-let-live types are able to swallow. So if you ask nicely, they'd probably let you join up, yeah? Better chance of finding that black dragon you're looking for, let alone surviving the encounter, if you team up with some real pros, I'd say."

She took a deep breath, and put on a calm face. "You've got a point there, Sunny. Maybe I'll look them up... y'know where they're based out of?" The sandy-haired adventurer shrugged apologetically. "Best I've heard, they don't stay in one place too long - they're always chasing the next dragon, yeah? But they're currently active somewhere in the northwestern kingdoms, supposedly. If you head that way, you'll probably be able to pick up better directions on the road - a small army of knights and adventurers running around picking fights with dragons aren't going to pass unnoticed, I'd say!" She nodded in agreement. That made sense - and besides, the local adventurers would definitely know about it. Yes. She'd jump on this. If nothing else, these 'Dragon-Slayers' were bound to have more information than she'd been able to get from the mid-tier adventurers she'd worked with so far.

Melora stirred as the sun rose, despite the rather vague light it provided, and was soon on her hooves. With a bit of poking at the embers, she was able to get her campfire started again, heating up some of the leftover mushroom-stew from last night. It promised to be a rather dull day. A steady, gray cloud-cover, a steady, cold wind... no rain, though, as best she could estimate from the look of the clouds. Still, she'd be sweating soon enough anyway - it was rough going, in these mountainous regions. Well, at least she wasn't being weighed down by much in the way of armor anymore, she thought wryly to herself.

She'd been tracing the rumors of the Dragon-Slayers across four different kingdoms by now, getting closer but never quite catching up. Last she'd heard, they were on their way to strike a dragonhome deeper inside these mountains, and she was determined to get there before they moved on this time! The lengthy chase, however, had drained her available funds - inns, supplies, carriage-fare and the occasional bribe had emptied her purse with remarkable speed. There'd been several opportunities to pause for a few days and do a quick, local adventuring-job in order to replenish her funds, but she'd passed them all up - convinced, somehow, that if she tarried overlong, she'd be too late.

Thus, a couple of villages back, when she'd found herself coming up short for a ferry-ticket that would get her upriver and closer to her goal a lot faster than walking, she'd traded in her armor - a carefully customized suit of half-plate that she'd purchased shortly after escaping captivity in the Remulian Empire. It had seen her through several adventures, saved her life once or twice, but it was the only thing she could easily convert into coin at that point. The blacksmith who agreed to take it off her hands had cheated her outrageously, perhaps sensing her urgency and desperation - she still didn't know what had possessed her to accept his offer. Certainly, turning up wearing little more than padded leather wouldn't exactly give the Dragon-Slayers the best impression of her competence and experience!

But she'd done it, and made the ferry. And now here she was, marching through the mountains on a cold, windy, cloudy day, with an empty purse, a mostly-empty backpack, a bedroll, and her well-worn glaive for a walking-stick. Ah, the adventuring life! A morose sense of hopelessness seemed to settle on her as she walked on, keeping an eye out for any fruit-bearing bushes or trees, edible mushrooms and greens, and other goodies she could forage for her lunch as she went. It must have been three years by now, she thought - or something close to it.

Drifting into the human kingdoms as a penniless beggar, finding work as a prostitute, then a mercenary, then being taken captive and enslaved, fighting in the arena, winning her freedom, becoming an adventurer... and now wandering the wilderness in search of a rumored band of dragon-slayers. Had any of it actually brought her closer to her goal? Here and there along the way, she'd found rumors - tall tales and hearsay. Black dragons popped up here and there in the accounts of the bards - usually in the context of 'it caused some trouble in this place a while back, then it was killed by brave, heroic adventurers!' Not very useful to her, nor conducive to optimism.

A black dragon with a rider? She'd heard the occasional rumor. Sightings. Nothing definitive. The most promising had been the one Sunny had also mentioned, when he sent her off on this chase - a black dragon with a rider had supposedly appeared in Karistad, and either chased off all the orcs who'd occupied it, or warned them so that they could safely retreat before the Knights of Mimbre launched their carefully-prepared counteroffensive... depending on who you asked. But by the time she heard of it and tried to follow up on it, the event had already had enough time to pass into local legend, embroidered with wild exaggerations. It had arrived at night, and things had clearly been quite chaotic, with lots of fire and screaming, which didn't tend to help people's memories. It also wasn't easy to tell the difference between a black and a dark-green dragon in the dead of night. There'd certainly been a rider, though, and some even claimed that she'd been the long-lost and assumed-to-be-dead daughter of the city's equally-lost hero, Arthenia the Amazon... a typical grows-in-every-telling type of story, basically.

Her depressive musings were interrupted by a distant flash and the rolling rumble of thunder, arriving just a second or two later. She jumped slightly, and glared up at the cloud-ceiling. There was nothing there to indicate a gathering thunderstorm, but then, she wasn't really seeing a lot of sky down here. Well! It was time she found herself a vantage, anyway, so that she could maybe see where she was going. And while the trees had diminished as she walked out of the foothills and into the real mountains, there were plenty of cliff-faces around that she could scramble up.

A few minutes later, she'd managed to do so - just as sweaty as she had expected. From atop a small outcropping, she had a commanding view of the area - able to peer across the boulder-strewn rises, the brushland, and the low plateaus that made up the region. The sky still seemed monotone and light-gray as far as she could spy, however - no darkening thunderheads in sight. She couldn't see past the mountain-peaks that rose to the west, of course, but she was reasonably certain that the thunderclap she'd heard had come from somewhere to the northeast. Peering determinedly in that rough direction, she suddenly spotted a bright flash up near the cloud-ceiling.

Her eyes widened. That hadn't been lightning. It had looked more like_fire_. And... there was more! Too distant to make out much detail, but... whoa! Something just caught on fire! It was streaking towards the ground like a falling star! What was it? No. Wrong question. What had set it on fire? Something that flew, and produced flame... a dragon. Well, this region was supposed to be the location of a decent-sized dragonhome, so that wasn't really_that surprising. And the whole reason she was here was that the Dragon-Slayers were _targeting that dragonhome, supposedly. Perhaps what she'd just spotted was a skirmish - the opening strike, or a fleeing survivor...

And yet, somehow, while her mind was running through all those reasonings and possibilities, her body was already in motion. She was pelting down the cliff she'd just so exhaustingly climbed, at a rather break-neck pace at that - and then she was off through the wasteland, zig-zagging between boulders and dashing through valleys, making her way in the direction of where that plunging ball of flame had gone down. Her heart was beating rapidly, and not just from the exertion. She could find no logical justification for it - and yet, she felt completely and utterly convinced that if she could only catch up to that falling star, somehow, in some strange way, she would meet him again. Her Master. It made no sense - but all the same, she dashed on, gripping her glaive, as the fire in her heart roared into an all-consuming inferno.

The magesmith pulled the cloth off with a dramatic flourish, and she gasped at what he'd just revealed. The simple, wooden mannequin he'd carried into the Master's chambers with some help from his apprentice was bedecked in a splendid suit of gleaming plate-mail, and the long package strapped to his back was moments later revealed to be a matching glaive. "Finished as requested, and perhaps my finest work yet!" He declared proudly as he leaned the hefty polearm against the armored mannequin.

The Master nodded, clearly satisfied. "It certainly looks handsome, my good smith... I trust everything is up to the specifications I made?" The smith nodded firmly, looking slightly hurt that the question had even been asked. "Of course! At, or beyond! One hundred percent dragonforged steel - and may I just ask that you convey my sincere thanks to the three dragons who took turns providing the flame? - providing the metal with both superb heat-resistance and an enchantment-capacity nearly comparable to gold. As for the enchantments themselves, I obviously cannot speak - not that I wouldn't have been perfectly happy to handle that side of it as well..."

The Master chuckled - a sound that always sent little ripples of delight down her spine, even when - as now - it wasn't actually directed at her. "No offense was intended, master smith. I have no doubts that your skill at enchanting fully matches your skill at the forge... but in the end, you do not have several centuries worth of experience in the field, and the one who provided those enchantments do. I am certain it made only a slight bit of difference in terms of the final result - but only the very_best is good enough for my Knight." The smith seemed somewhat mollified by the implication that, in terms of the _forging at least, he was the very best. Melora, meanwhile, had to exert a not-insignificant effort to avoid simply melting into a puddle on the floor.

His_Knight_. It sounded ridiculous, but the more she thought about it, the more it fit. Ultimately, a Knight was not defined by his armor or his horse, let alone his sex - rather, a Knight was a warrior who stood in loyal service to a lord, wielding sword (or glaive) in that lord's service rather than for their own benefit. It was, she reflected, one heck of a career-trajectory. From prostitute, to mercenary, to slave, to gladiator, to adventurer, to a dragon's Knight. With this armor and weapon, the reward for her faithful service so far, she would be able to stand by His side. She could fight alongside Lady Anitra, and perhaps even help to protect the Master himself, should some unfortunate situation render him briefly weakened, as when she had first caught up with him again...

Yes, she thought as she admired the armor and tried to still her rapidly-beating heart. She was his Knight, as well as his servant, his lover, and even his willing slave. All the things she'd suffered through on her journey had paid off - and on His whim, she would do it all again, with a smile on her face. Wear a collar, serve as a toilet, fight and kill, taste disgusting humiliations of every stripe... for Him, it would be a joy. For years, throughout her time as a whore, a mercenary and a slave, she'd been forced to let countless men use her body as they pleased - hating every moment, even as she found some occasional pleasure in it. But the very night they had been reunited, the Master had asked what she would do if he ordered her to offer her body freely to any who desired it - and even as she gave him the obvious answer, it had felt as if a door had opened inside her.

The memories of those long weeks and months no longer tormented of bothered her. Whenever they resurfaced in her dreams, it was with a simple twist - that of the Master, looming over it all like a vast shadow, grinning down at her as she was strapped to the horse's belly, chained down in the latrines, or railed by a horde of drunken mercenaries. All the disgust, humiliation and hopelessness she'd felt back then melted away before his towering visage, and only pleasure remained. She knew that He would not hesitate to hand her over to an army of horny soldiers - or a pack of dogs, or a herd of horses - to be used and abused as they pleased, on a whim, purely for His own amusement. Indeed, he'd already had her pleasuring a large number of his draconic comrades during his past absences.

It was amazing how just... knowing that it amused Him to see her pleasuring others with her body recontextualized everything she had gone through. Made it all seem so much... hotter. Not that she didn't still wish that more of her various captors had resorted to more physical punishment instead of the more humiliating tasks she'd found herself stuck with from time to time. But no matter. The Master seemed downright eager to fulfill her every dark fantasy in that regard, piling torments untold on her - and smiling as she writhed in agony.

As she caressed the steel breastplate, marveling at the way it felt slightly warm to the touch - presumably due to the dragonfire infusing the material - she saw her reflection gazing back at her, distorted by the curves that had so lovingly been crafted into it in order to match her own measurements. She flashed herself a smile. "You made it..." she told herself silently. "You found_Him, and He accepted you. None of it was in vain. Maybe some kind of... fate-manipulating magic was involved, like that vampire was talking about back then, but who cares? You _made it!"

Her journey was complete.

THE END