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Hyla Brokenfang had struck a bargain with the god of fair trades: her past as a disgraced warrior would be forgotten, and she would now serve his house as a slave.

The badger had expected this to mean a drastic change in her life. She was prepared, so she thought, to live in a new place, far away from home. She was prepared, so she thought, to live a new life, so different from the one she had been brought up for. She was prepared, so she thought, to live where gods walked among people and were not shunned.

What she was not prepared for, what she could not possibly have been prepared for, was the tree.

Freed of the bonds that had held her prisoner for days, the badger warrior had taken her first unsteady steps out of the earthen hut that had been her erstwhile residence. There were many things to take in, mountains and forests and a sprawling city, but what commanded her attention was the tree that grew before her.

The tree was impossibly tall, the size of a small mountain. A comfortably spacious den could be carved out from one of its smaller roots. A single leaf could form the roof of a house. Its boughs stretched out and provided shade across the entirety of the neighboring city. It swayed gently in a cool evening breeze, but made no sound as it did so. It was a thing that could not, should not be. By every rule that Hyla knew, the tree ought to uproot itself and crash to the ground; or its trunk ought to snap in half.

Hyla tore her gaze from the tree and looked suspiciously at the receding figure of the coyote who held a god inside him, as if he were responsible for the tree. He had barely spoken a word to her since the deal had been struck, but then she had not expected him to. He was a leader, a significant leader if the size of the city was anything to judge by, and she was only a slave. He had more important things to concern himself with.

As she watched, an eye briefly opened on the back of his neck and looked back; the god Totukepsan peeked out at her, returning her suspicious glare.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" said Azair. The silver-furred fox was at Hyla's side, holding gently onto her arm and looking up at the impossible tree.

"It feels like a god-thing. Are there many gods around here?" Hyla asked.

The vixen shook her head. "No, not really. There's Totukepsan, of course. And there are other channelers like him who stop by every now and then. It is a very big city after all. But no one besides Totukepsan lives here. Oh, and we do have a... a..."

Azair growled at herself for not knowing the word, and had to explain it very slowly using much simpler words, until Hyla could understand what she meant. "A witch?"

"I think so. She lives there." Azair gestured around the tree.

Hyla followed the gesture across the surrounding landscape. The tree was near the top of a hill, and a vast city spread itself down from the tree into a river valley. On the far side of the city was another hill and there, where the fox pointed, Hyla could make out one building taller and grander than all the others, glinting and sparkling in the fading light like a piece of crystal.

A god and a witch sharing a city. Gods were untrustworthy, but witches were all right with Hyla. She knew of a wolverine witch who had lived far to the north of her home. (Her previous home, she had to remind herself.) It was said the witch fought the gods as equals.

"I suppose I can live with one god."

Azair wrinkled her muzzle. Her ears flicked. "Are gods...bad?"

Hyla said yes before she had even fully processed the question. Gods burned down forests and froze villages. Gods caused famine and plague. Gods tortured you to death and laughed as they did so. Gods sent out monsters. Of course gods were bad. It was a ridiculous question to ask. But it had been asked, and asked so earnestly that it made Hyla second-guess herself. "At least, badger gods are."

"All of them?"

The look on Azair's face seemed disappointed, and Hyla did not want to disappoint her. "Most of them. There's Yakil, the secret-keeper, who will tell you one of her secrets if you can catch her. She's harmless. And there's Taavir and Tevir, the blacksmiths, who made the first badgers out of iron, with bits of hematite for our eyes. They're good."

"Oh, Totukepsan is one of the good ones. Really." Azair's hand squeezed the badger's. She didn't seem to understand everything that Hyla had said. Words like "blacksmith" had slid in one long ear and out the other. But she understood enough to get the idea.

Hyla cast another suspicious glance towards the coyote. He had stopped partway down the hill, and was talking to Colfor, the rabbit majordomo. Something the coyote said so shocked the rabbit that he dropped his quill. As they watched, Colfor gave a short bow to the coyote (who Hyla was already coming to refer to mentally as "Master"), collected his quill from the ground, and then immediately headed for Hyla and Azair.

He walked with a short quick gait, his shoulders hunched high. Hyla thought at first he was injured, and then realized it was to keep the hem of his fine robe from coming too close to the ground and getting soiled.

He finally relaxed once in front of the badger. In one hand he held a sheaf of papers on a board, and in the other he held the recovered quill. "So," he said in his nasal tones, "you have decided to stay with us at the House of Totukepsan, and as a pleasure slave?"

Hyla nodded.

The rabbit scratched something quick onto the top piece of paper. "Do you understand the duties of that role?"

"I can guess," the badger said gruffly. It was, however, a lie. Badger society had a loose idea of slavery. The most common form was akin to a prisoner of war: an aggressor who had been captured would be required to repair the damages they had caused before they would be returned to their family. Sometimes that took days. Sometimes that took months. And badger society likewise had no need of someone whose sole role was to bring sexual pleasure to others. If you wanted to have sex with someone, and they wanted to have sex with you, then you typically just had sex. So Azair, who was both a slave and someone whose role was to bring pleasure to others, was an enigma to the badger.

Colfor easily picked up on the lie. "That is a no then."

Something about his words felt off to Hyla's ear. There was an anxiety underneath them that hadn't been there the first time he had spoken to her. Azair did not seem to notice, and was just pressing herself in against the badger's side.

The rabbit idly rubbed the soft feather he held against one of his long ears, as if tending to an old itch. He spoke, reciting from memory. "Pleasure slaves are rented by visitors for a span of time, most commonly for a day or night. You are expected to be available six days per week, although it is likely you will only be actively rented for a fraction of that. While rented, you are to perform whatever services the renter requires, most commonly sexual favors, unless these would cause harm or injury to yourself or the renter. While not rented, you are expected to assist in other general duties that require attention, such as cleaning. Can you do all that?"

Hyla bared her teeth. "You don't think I can."

The quill stopped rubbing at Colfor's ear. He had been pulled from the memorized patter by the unexpected response. He took stock of Hyla. "If I ordered you to drop to your knees and fellate me, right here, right now, would you?"

The warrior considered, crossed her arms, and nodded.

Colfor sighed. "Too slow and too unenthusiastic."

Hyla rolled her eyes and found her gaze drawn up to the tree above her.

"Eyes down here, please," the rabbit said, the anxiousness in his voice creeping higher for just a moment. "We can work on your enthusiasm later however. To your earlier point, I think you are more than physically capable for the job. Badgers are quite rare down here and you have an unusual body type, so will likely be in high demand. Your training would give you sufficient stamina. And, well, you have ample... assets."

Azair giggled beside her.

For the first time, Hyla considered her size in this strange land. She was slightly larger than normal for a badger, barely noticeable really. But badgers were large compared to all these other species. Most of them came only up to her shoulders. Azair had her head even with Hyla's breasts, and her head was roughly equal in size to one of them. She did, as the rabbit said, have ample assets.

"But the physical is not what concerns me. The mental does. While you may imagine yourself enjoying a pleasurable night in the company of someone who seeks your enjoyment as much as their own, that is not always the case, or even often the case. You will be required to serve whoever pays, regardless of what you think of them. Whether they be unattractive, or demeaning, or even," the rabbit paused to cant his head, one of his long ears flopping down sideways, "if you find them annoying."

Hyla grimaced and felt chastened by the comment. "I'm sorry," she said.

He shrugged. "I am well aware of how those who work here perceive me. Just do your job well and there will be no issues." He flourished the quill and prepared to write. "Sexuality?"

Hyla blinked at him.

Colfor coughed and tapped the far end of his quill his muzzle. "Do you prefer men or women?"

"I do not care."

"That's good to hear." He scribbled something down. "Any sexual activities you would not like to perform?"

"I thought I had to perform 'whatever services the renter desires'."

"You do," Colfor confirmed. As he spoke, the quill once again came up to scratch the itch along his ear. "However, we do try and match customers to slaves as best we can. We do not want to pair up a client interested in anal sex with someone who would get physically ill from said act, for instance. You are expected to be versatile, but not infinitely so." He paused to let that information filter in. "Are there any positions or acts you can think of that you would have difficulty performing?"

Hyla shook her head and found her gaze once more drifting back up to the tree.

"Stop looking at it!"

Hyla took a step back, weight dropping into a defensive position. Colfor had spoken with such anger, such venom in his voice, that she was sure he was about to strike. Even Azair had hidden herself behind the badger's bulk.

Colfor seemed as surprised by his outburst as the two of them. He pinched the bridge of his muzzle, breathed deep, and then, after a moment's deep thought, started to speak quickly in a language Hyla did not understand. All his words were addressed to Azair. The vixen seemed unhappy, but when she opened her mouth to complain, Colfor cut her off sharply. He was reinforcing his position in the social order. He was in charge. She was a slave. She would obey.

At the end of his stream of words, he thrust out his hand, pointing down a path around the backside of the tree. Azair, after another quick squeeze of Hyla's hand, ran down the path without a look behind her.

"Hyla, kneel."

The rabbit's wheedly, nasal voice had a cold edge to it. She did not hesitate before her knees sunk to the ground.

He scuffed a spot into the dirt path. "Keep your head down and your eyes focused on that."

She lowered her head and did as she was bade.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Colfor pacing back and forth with a slow step. At last, he seemed to decide on something and bent down beside her. Hyla noticed that he no longer seemed to care about his robe, the ends of it scraping along the dusty ground.

"What I am about to tell you I do not want you repeating. Not to Azair, not to any of the other slaves, not even to the Master." The rabbit's voice was now low and soft, almost a whisper. Gone was the stiff formality it usually held. "You see, I was a very young buck when I left home. There's always room in a caravan for someone who can speak two or three languages well and can do some arithmetic. I wanted to get out, to see the world. I had heard about the ocean, so I took a caravan out to see it. I had heard about the great forests, so I took a caravan out to see them. I had heard about lands coated by ice, so I took a caravan out to see them. And eventually I ended up here.

"I looked at the tree too. For far too long. So I know what you are thinking when you look at it. You are thinking that you had never known such a place existed. You had never heard of such a place existing, not even in rumors from traders, and everyone knows what gossips traders can be. So either the tree isn't real, just a dream; or else it is real, and you are so far away from home that you might never find your way back again. And so you keep staring at the tree in the hope of seeing something wrong, something that will prove it isn't real, so that you can believe you are not alone."

Hyla could not help herself. She turned her head from the spot on the ground and looked up in surprise at the rabbit. He wasn't looking at her. He too was staring at the spot. He nudged her shoulder and she returned her gaze to it.

"I had traveled even farther than you had. When I arrived here, no one--let me emphasize that, no one--spoke the language of my home, no one had ever seen a saguaro before, no one had ever heard of a prickly pear. The realization made me so lonely, so terribly lonely that it almost killed me."

Then the rabbit went silent. He was quiet for so long, that eventually Hyla felt the need to speak up. "Then how did you live?" she asked.

"I built a new home, and I filled it with people I loved. It was the hardest work I have ever had to do, but it was worth it. It kept me alive. You will have to do the same, and while I wish I could say it will not be hard for you, it likely will be. No one else here will fully understand. They all came from closer lands. But I hope, at least, you will start the work far faster than I did."

He lapsed into silence again, and Hyla did as well. They sat together, staring at the spot in the dirt, until Colfor dusted the hem of his robes and stood up, clearing his throat as he did so.

"You may stand now, slave."

She did, but this time, she kept her gaze on him, not up at the impossible tree above her.

The rabbit noticed this and smiled thinly. "We can complete your work forms later. Continue on this path. You will notice a large building on your left. Those are the slave quarters. The second entrance is to a bathhouse. Go there. Azair will be waiting for you." He folded the sheet of paper he had been writing on and tucked it into a pocket in his robes. "I have other matters to attend to. Be on your way."

Hyla began walking along the path. Alone.

* * *

The path was long. It wound all the way around the backside of the great tree. Her eyes stayed down on the path before her, but her ears, no matter how much she tried, stayed up, straining towards the tree, expecting at any moment to hear the creak of a bough, the groan of a trunk, or the rustle of leaves. Hearing nothing only made them strain harder against the silence, sure that any moment now it would make a noise.

Hyla shifted her gait: her weight pressed down into deep heavy footfalls, that made a satisfying thump, thump, thump as she walked. It gave her ears a distraction.

Her foot came down hard on a stone and the quick burst of pain forced a memory into the forefront of the badger's mind, when she had been made to march on sharp, jagged rocks in a circle with other novices.

"You cannot just ignore pain," her teacher had said from the center of the circle. "No more than you can ignore hunger or thirst. Hunger ignored only grows. Thirst ignored only grows. And if you ignore the pain you feel, it too will only grow."

Badgers are famous for their martial resiliency. A badger could keep fighting through blows that would fell others. A dozen arrows could pepper her body and Hyla would not falter. A spear could pierce her lung and she would breathe as steadily as always. A gash from a sword, a blow from a mace, fangs piercing the skin--these were nothing to a badger warrior.

But this skill was only partly innate. Part of it had to be taught. And now, Hyla remembered that lesson.

"The only thing you can do is accept the pain as a part of your experience in the world, as much as the chill in the wind or the smells in the air. Accept it as you do the hunger you experience in between meals. Because you know that you will be able to feed it later, it does not trouble you. You gain power over your hunger, and so you can gain power over your pain the same way."

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Hyla's footfalls came faster. She could not ignore her memories the same way she could ignore the tree. So she tried to outrun them. Her pace quickened.

"When you accept the pain, you hold it at bay, but it will not fade on its own. You must make time to accept the pain fully, to let it hurt you as it is meant to do. If you do not, then you might as well have ignored it in the first place, because the pain will only fester and grow until it consumes you, as hunger or thirst will. When the time is right, when the task is done, let the pain hurt."

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Hyla was ignoring the pain. She was not ready yet. She knew what awaited her at that memory's end; she knew what she would see if she turned her head and looked into the throng of novices. And, brave warrior that she was, it scared her.

So she ran.

* * *

The slave quarters were in a simple building, solid if not elaborate. As Hyla approached, she saw a few people lounging on the higher floors, leaning on banisters to enjoy the evening breeze. Some glanced once at her and then turned very deliberately away. Others stared, and kept staring until they noticed Hyla looking at them and then they would panic and dive inside.

Next to the slave quarters was a one-story building, just as simply built. At the door was Azair, smiling as Hyla approached. She gestured up at the slave quarters. "Don't mind them," she said. "Colfor sent me ahead with orders to make sure they weren't all bothering you when you arrived." If she noticed that the badger was unusually out of breath, she did not say anything. She simply held the badger's hand once more and led her into the building.

The decoration inside was as sparse as it was outside: everything was functional and unadorned. Right now, Hyla stood in a large open-air bathhouse that opened up onto a number of natural hot springs and surrounding pools. The room held a number of stations with small polished metal mirrors and simple beauty products, most notably a range of brushes for different types of fur. A few of the stations had people at them, but most were just enjoying the water.

And everyone, Hyla noted, wore a collar.

Hyla glanced down a side corridor and saw a number of faces quickly dart out of view. Colfor's orders only went so far against innate curiosity, it seemed. But at least here, none of the bathers were looking at her too closely, and for that, Hyla was grateful.

The fox took Hyla to a wall lined with little cubbyholes. She shed the little wrap around her waist and the cuffs on her wrists that were the sum total of her clothing and laid them on the shelf, then tapped the next hole down. Hyla still wore the collar she had been given by the slavers who first captured her, but also a simple loincloth. She took the latter off and put it on the shelf.

Azair glanced over her naked body and smiled ever so gently. "Come on," she said. "You're beautiful, but you also smell pretty bad right now." She tugged the badger to the central pool which was devoid of any other occupants (another suggestion from Colfor, she guessed).

The water was warm, a little too warm, but it sank deep under her thick fur as soon as she stepped in. Instantly, the badger dipped down until the water covered all but the top of her head, and let the heat suffuse her. She could feel bits of dirt and grime that had caked in her underfur for weeks be slowly eroded away. Azair helped. Delicate vulpine hands worked the water in, and she brought a brush that worked through the badger's fur more finely than her fingers could. Hyla could see a muddy touch to the water around her, which was quickly whisked away as the water flowed over the edge of the pool and into a stream below.

Soon the water ran clear. Hyla felt peaceful under the soothing ripples of water and Azair's comforting touch.

She closed her eyes. She was ready.

She let the pain hurt.

Not all of it. She wasn't yet ready to confront the face in her memories and the things it would say about her. But she let herself feel the hurt of loneliness and alienation, of being in a strange world and knowing that you would never find your way home.

It was not the sort of pain that made you cry. It was the sort of pain that sank deep into your bones and left you feeling hollow, an icy pain that crept into your lungs and froze them, so that each breath became an effort. Hyla screwed her eyes shut and tried to keep herself steady through the pain, but it was hard. The inky pit of blackness in her mind had fallen away, but it had consumed the rest of her body. Her arms felt like lead, her legs like iron. She could feel herself shaking, but the motion was uncontrollable. She kept shivering despite the warmth of the water around her.

The problem of the pain of loneliness was that it felt like it could go on forever. Every wound becomes a scar, every broken bone gets set. If you can endure the pain long enough it fades. But not with loneliness. The only thing that kept Hyla from losing herself to the blackness was the soft hand on her arm, holding her steady.

But it wasn't the only hand on her. The badger belatedly realized there were many more, holding her, warm bodies pressing against her and replacing the warmth of the water with the warmth of their own fur.

She blinked and looked round. Several of the other slaves had come up and were holding her.

She nodded a thanks to them and they slowly slipped away, except for a male wolf who first said something that Azair had to translate: "Everyone knows the first day is the worst." But she amended that to, "It's usually the worst."

"Usually?" Hyla asked. Her throat was swollen and difficult to work, as if she had been crying.

Azair's long ears flattened. She looked a little guilty, and tried to disguise it by resuming her brushing of Hyla's fur. "Most slaves here are not here by choice. They were captured and forced into servitude. The first day you realize that you can't go back can be really terrible. But not everyone was forced," she said, and Hyla caught the hint that Azair herself was one of those. But Hyla found it strange. Azair felt no shame about sex, that much she was sure about; there was something else she didn't feel comfortable explaining.

So Hyla changed the subject. "You reminded me of someone."

That caught the fox's attention. Her brush stopped in its stroke along Hyla's shoulders, and her tail gave an involuntary swish under the water. "Oh?"

"We don't have anything like pleasure slaves in the lands I grew up in. But we did have traveling storytellers. They were nomadic, a solitary badger wandering from village to village. When they arrived, we made a special meal, there was a celebration that lasted long into the evening. And they would perform a great saga. They didn't just use their voice. They danced, they fought. Their whole body was a part of the tale. When I was young, I wanted to be one." Before life pulled me a different way, she thought.

"And they reminded you of me?"

"You looked like you were performing, when you were with the guard. But instead of battles, you were having sex." Hyla sighed a little and looked out of the bathhouse, towards the setting sun and the bright purple and red sky. "I thought I might be able to be like one of those storytellers again. That's why I chose this role."

Azair went back to brushing out Hyla's fur, until her inner ears went suddenly red.

"What is it?"

The fox tilted her head a little away. "I was just thinking. I'd heard so much about badger warriors, that I thought you were all warriors."

"Nonsense, who would get food?"

The blush only seemed to expand in her ears. "Uh, I thought maybe you raided for it?"

Hyla's brow furrowed. "And who would build our homes?"

"Maybe you fought someone and took their homes?"

Hyla found the whole idea rather silly, and a part of her could not resist needling the vixen further. "And who would look after the kits?"

Azair looked more and more perplexed until she glanced up and saw the smile on Hyla's face. She seemed to breathe easier. "Well, that's easy. If they get out of line, you just fight them!"

And Hyla laughed. It was a short, gruff bark of a laugh, but it felt good all the same. "The badger clans," she explained, "used to fight amongst themselves a lot. Now a lot more of us fight against invaders from the south. And there are always monsters to deal with as well."

Azair listened silently, continuing to brush through Hyla's fur. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter, almost shy. "Would you like to try 'performing' right now?"

"Here?"

The corners of Azair's muzzle lifted and she glanced to one side. The badger followed her gaze to see the wolf from before quietly masturbating in the corner. She turned her head a little more and saw a pair of skunks fucking away on the edge of a pool. There seemed to be no problem with public sex, although it seemed the slaves did their best to not disturb their neighbors.

Hyla reached out and pulled the fox in against her, muzzle to muzzle, for a kiss. When she pulled away, the fox was frowning. "What?"

"We need to work on that. You kiss like you're fighting my mouth."

"I am a warrior," Hyla reminded her, and then immediately felt a stab in the back of her thoughts. "Was a warrior."

Now it was Azair who tried to change the subject. "Some people may like that! But others won't. You need to change to what the customer wants."

Azair continued trying to discuss, with her limited badger vocabulary, proper kissing techniques, but Hyla had stopped paying attention. Someone else had just walked into the bathhouse. She was an otter, but one whose entire pelt was a tapestry of different arts, making use of every way Hyla had ever seen (and several ways she hadn't) of decorating one's body. The most common style was a deep fur dye, but Hyla counted at least seven different dye patterns, some straight and jagged, some curving and swaying like vines around the otter's lithe body. In places, the fur was cut so short that you could see tattooed skin underneath. In other places, the fur trimming itself was the pattern, showing an image in relief. Then there were patches of her body that demonstrated more extreme techniques, like branding or badger-style scarification. To round everything off, she was pierced almost everywhere: nose, both nipples, clit, both ears, tongue, several in her lips and each labia, and along various surfaces of her body.

Seeing her, Hyla was reminded of how the trading caravans that passed through her sett always had one trader who presented a motley collection of knick-knacks from all the areas they had ever traded in. Not one of the items belonged next to any of the others, but somehow, seeing them all together, presented a strange beauty of its own.

When Azair noticed Hyla staring at the otter, she waved for the other woman to join them. The otter quietly stepped up to the edge of the pool they were at, leaning over and trailing her feet into the warm water.

And then, with little more than a flash from her piercings, she slid silently into the pool, an arrow darting through the water and spinning circles through the small space before surfacing right in front of the warrior. Her slim eyes looking out under thick made-up lashes, she examined the badger and then gestured to Azair.

Azair gestured back, with an intricate sequence of hand motions.

It took Hyla a moment, and several more interchanged signals, for her to realize that the motions being made were a language. They were how the otter spoke.

"What are you saying?" Hyla asked.

There was a flicker in Azair's ear. She kept her eyes on the otter. "She wanted to know about you, so I'm telling her as best I can."

"What is her name?"

Azair made a motion that looked like the flapping wings of a butterfly. "But her stage name is Zurra."

Hyla remembered Colfor's advice and said, "Would you tell her I think she is beautiful?"

Azair nodded and pointed to the warrior before making a few more gestures. Rather a lot more gestures, Hyla thought, than were needed simply to express the idea of beauty.

The otter looked back to Hyla. Her face was surprisingly impassive, with no emotion showing. Then, with a flourish, she dived backwards in a quick graceful arc, and once again began to swim in a circle around the pool. This time though, as she swam, she began to slowly revolve. One arm crested through the surface, trailing a sheet of water, before slipping back under as she rolled again. And as she turned, Hyla saw that the wild patterns of different arts were all connected. The tattoo on the back of one hand faded into design of trimmed fur that gave way to scarwork on her shoulder and then a rising crescendo of piercings along her shoulder. Then, at the nape of her neck, the pattern switched and went in a different order down her other arm.

It was mesmerizing.

Zurra's swimming grew tighter. The circle contracted. And as it contracted it sped up, until the patterns along her fur became a blur in the churning water.

Then, she jackknifed up out of the water, sending a spray dancing all around her. She was held aloft on her tail, rotating slowly on it as her body stayed perfectly still.

It was like watching a life-sized statue revolving on a platform. Except she was real.

Zurra slowly relaxed her tail and sank down, keeping her body held in position until her nose had disappeared under the surface.

Then she was on the far side of the pool, pulling herself out.

"Can you tell her I think that was wonderful?"

Azair giggled. "She knows. She isn't a pleasure slave like you or me. She just performs on stage like that. She's really talented." She looked a little sheepish. "You talked about the storytellers from your home, and I thought you might like to see it."

"Thank you. But I don't really know how to perform like her, or like you."

Azair translated this into gestures so that Zurra could follow. The otter gestured back.

"She asks if you were trained as a warrior."

Hyla nodded. She thought Azair already knew the answer to that, but perhaps the vixen was asking out of courtesy. She and the otter each gestured back to one another.

"She says if you were trained as a warrior, then why not perform the way a warrior does?"

Hyla was about to protest. She did not want to be a sword-dancer or wrestler or any thing else that would bring her back too close to the bloodrage again. But then she realized that Zurra hadn't asked her to perform as a warrior, but to perform the way a warrior does. She did not know the techniques of the nomadic storytellers, or the artistic flourishes of Zurra's dancing, but she did know about exhibition matches, sparring, and showcases. Those made sense to her. She could perform that way. All she had to do was vary the act she was performing.

The badger came to a decision. She stood and hauled Azair out of the water, throwing the surprised fox over one shoulder. Her yelp brought the attention of everyone in the room to bear on them both. Hyla glanced around and saw that in the middle of the bathhouse was a supporting pillar, big and sturdy enough for what she had in mind.

Hyla cleared the pool in three large strides and stepped out into the bathhouse proper, dripping water. Azair squirmed on her shoulder, but did not try to throw herself off.

Hyla walked right up to the pillar and pushed Azair's back against it. "Let me show you a performance of my own," she said, and hefted up on Azair's body. Her back slid along the pillar until she was at the height Hyla wanted, the fox's head almost brushing against the ceiling and her naked sex directly in front of the badger's muzzle.

The badger supported Azair's weight with strong hands underneath her thighs. But she pushed out with them, forcing the fox to spread herself and show off more for the now attentive crowd. Hyla glanced up over the curve of her body and saw the vixen looking back down with a quizzical but interested expression on her face.

She was, however, still squirming far too much. Hyla leaned in and nipped at her belly. Her sharp fangs brushed over her and bit without breaking the skin. Azair stilled, and Hyla let go. "I'm the focus, not you," she said.

Hyla pulled her head back and subconsciously ran her tongue along her teeth. The broken fang which was her new namesake still felt out of place in her mouth. She gave her head a quick shake.

It had been a while since Hyla had been with another woman, but she was reasonably skilled. She leaned in and began to lick slowly over the presented vulva. A salty, chemically tang from the hot spring water clung to Azair's sex, but that was removed in one, two, three long laps of the badger's tongue. Remembering what her instructors had said long ago, Hyla exaggerated the movement. ("Practice big and slow," they had said, "to learn form. Small and quick comes later.") She licked from the base of Azair's sex up to the clit, but her muzzle, head, and shoulders were involved in the motion, pushing the badger's body up and forward on every lick.

Above, Azair made a cooing sound, and Hyla glanced up to see the fox wrapping her arms around one of the supporting beams in the ceiling, taking some of the weight off of Hyla's arms.

Emboldened by the reaction, Hyla nuzzled in to tend directly to the vixen's clit. She dragged her lower jaw against it, scraping past it with the sharp point of her teeth, then the dull side of them, then the lower lips. Her lips got the most reaction, a quiver that ran through the fox's legs; so Hyla closed her lips around the nub and began twisting her head one way, then the other. Hyla's upturned ears caught every little gasp and moan from the vixen's throat.

The badger's hands slipped out from under the vixen's thighs, supporting her weight first on her forearms and then, as Hyla leant forward, more onto her upper arms and shoulders. This left her hands free to roam over the vixen's silvery fur. Her thick claws left furrows as they roamed through the rich pelt, and when she reached for the vixen's breasts, she found that her hands were more than enough to enfold them, stroking and groping from all angles at once.

Hyla knew the limitations of her sexual process as surely as she knew the distance she could sprint or the length she could throw a spear. Her tongue was not as large or as long or as thick or even as dexterous as many others would be. So she had to supplement with the sheer raw force she could offer. She wriggled her tongue past Azair's labia, positioned the tip of it against her sex proper, and thrust in, with the weight of her whole body behind the action.

Azair's breath caught in her throat and Hyla could feel the clench around her tongue as the smaller vixen's body was jostled from the force. Hyla pulled back and thrust in again, the motion deliberately slow and exaggerated for the onlookers. Each push lifted Azair up a little higher before the retraction brought her back down. Hyla began to drag her claws down through the silvery fur on each thrust, bringing her fingers down until they almost touched the vixen's sex before she started over.

One of Azair's legs turned and hooked around the back of her neck, pulling her close, or at least trying to. Hyla grinned and deliberately pushed herself further away, overpowering the vixen's grip. She was going to do this at her own pace.

But Hyla also wanted her to get off. So after a few minutes of teasing slowness, she thrust in deep once more, bringing her claws in to brush sidelong over the vixen's labia. She rubbed faster and faster, wriggling her tongue as hard as she could, until with a crooning sound the vixen came.

Hyla pistoned her tongue in once or twice, cleaning up the juices that spilled out of her and listening to the contented panting of the vixen.

It was a good moment, ruined only by the applause of the other slaves as she let Azair down. The sound struck her like a hammer as it awakened the voice at the back of her mind, in the pool of blackness, reminding her that she did not deserve this. She was an oathbreaker.

She tried to ignore it, but she could not. And even Azair seemed to understand something was wrong. "You're had a long day. Let's get you food and go to bed."

Hyla nodded.

They waved goodbye to the other slaves and Azair thanked Zurra for the both of them. Together they retrieved their clothes, and went down a hallway into the slave quarters. Everywhere eyes followed them, and now with the state of Hyla's mind, there was a dark edge to their looks. Consciously Hyla knew better, but subconsciously she imagined everyone was gossiping about her, the disgraced warrior and her dishonor.

Dinner was simple, but surprisingly good, a hearty mixed-grain porridge with a selection of flavorings available. Hyla went with a berry syrup she had never smelled before. All the while Azair told her of the various other meals you sometimes got with clients: sumptuous meats and fresh-made sweets. It wasn't always porridge. Hyla didn't mind porridge. It was a good warrior's meal. ("But you're not a warrior anymore," the whisper in her mind reminded her.)

Bed consisted of a padded mat on the floor and a thin sheet over top. Hyla's spot was, at least for now, right next to Azair, and she was grateful for the company of the fox. She nodded off with disquieting thoughts on the periphery of her mind.

* * *

Hyla slept fitfully. She drifted in the liminal space of dreams where she had just enough awareness of her body to know she was tossing and turning. She rolled this way and that, occasionally groaning, occasionally growling, occasionally jerking and kicking out. Dark hands seemed to grasp at her, threatening to pull her down and suffocate her.

Then, they were gone, and in their place, Hyla saw a bat, an old bat, spine bent almost double with age. She was barely able to hold a broom in her feeble wings, but still she swept. "Hyla, Hyla," the bat muttered sing-song. "The forgetful one. So easy to forget when you're awake, but so many things can be remembered in dreams, yes, yes."

Hyla looked over the bat. No matter how she turned, the bat stayed facing the same way: away from her. No matter how she tried, she could not see the bat's face. And something in the logic of dreams told her she never would, that the bat had no face to be seen. "Are you a god?" she asked without her lips moving.

"God? God? No, Ashi is not a god. Badgers do not like gods. So Ashi is just little Ashi the cleaning woman, old Ashi the cleaning woman. Nothing more. Nothing more."

The bat kept sweeping in long powerful strokes that seemed impossible for one so small and fragile. And with each sweep, the darkness receded, Hyla breathed easier, and rested more calmly. Hyla could feel herself slipping towards sleep again, even in the dream, the deep, dark quiet dreamless sleep.

The whispering began to well up in the black depths of her mind, and all at once, the bat lashed out, wings darting into the darkness and coming back with something curled inside of them. "Ah, Ashi caught you. You won't cause any more trouble now. No, you won't." And she devoured the unseen thing greedily. Her wing then reached out and brushed Hyla's cheek. "Now you rest, badger. Ashi will keep cleaning, yes, she will."

And Hyla slept peacefully this time.

* * *

She woke bright, quick, and alert, but had hardly been up for a few minutes when Colfor appeared. Hyla could tell this was unusual, as there was a not-so-quiet murmuring from the other slaves, who were woken by his arrival. He however, stood at the foot of Hyla's mat and said, "Time to get to work. You have your first customer."

Next Time: Hyla Brokenfang and the Tailor's Needle