FSE

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The journey there was the final trial.

The path marked on the map Eyazen had found went straight over the mountains. Winter's breath was still weak down in the valleys, but atop those peaks, it howled and raged in never-ending blizzards. Going around would have added a fortnight to his journey, and the wolf was unwilling to delay further. Not with his ultimate goal so close.

Besides: what was a little cold to a fire mage?

He thought back to that dismissive claim many times after, for though a powerful heat aura kept his clothes dry and his body from freezing into immobility, it did nothing for the frost-shattered rocks he had to climb or the slipperiness of the ice as he inched along narrow bridges over crevasses whose depths would kill him with one wrong footfall. When at last he surmounted a peak that gave him a view over the lands ahead--warm and green, a sight that filled his breast with anticipation--he set one paw upon a rock and braved the full power of the cold for a few moments to focus all his energies upon that hand. When he withdrew it, his mark was melted upon the rock, and he looked at it with deep satisfaction.

People would visit here in years to come, he knew. When his name was a byword for power. They would climb the mountains as he had, and look upon the mark he had made during his trials, and be awed.

Eyazen was here, they would say. He bore the trials to gain the power he knew was due to him.

The descent was no better than the climb...but at least it was faster. When the wolf found a sufficiently open area, he would lie upon the snow and draw in power until it melted just enough--then released it to let it freeze again. Repeated once or twice, he could form an icy layer upon which to sit and slide across the snow. He had to invest it with some heat of its own to make contact with the snow slippery, but that was alright. He could descend half a league in moments on the ice-toboggan before it melted. This was why the reward of the trial was his to claim, he knew. His command of the energies of fire magic already far exceeded those of others. Who better to learn the secrets that would give him ultimate control?

Shortly before he entered the tree line, he looked out over the valley. He could make the air shimmer with heat, wavering madly, but if done just right, distant things sprang into focus. Thus he found a sliver of smoke at the far end, drifting smugly in the air. It could only be what he sought.

Down through the trees, where the snow was thin and he could move faster, until even they fell away and he was into the valley proper, hurrying through the undergrowth and heedlessly splashing across streams of ice-melt water--every step sending billows of steam upward as he flashed the water to boiling point to keep it from soaking him. His eyes did not waver from the ridge at the far end of the valley, whereon he had spied the single thread of smoke.

It was evening when he reached the base of the ridge. Above sat a small hut, like a croftsman might use. The smell of evening cooking drifted down on the breeze, and the wolf's belly growled. He ignored it. He could attend to everyday needs when he had received what he had travelled so far to find.

He began to climb the ridge, gathering his power about him like a cloak. The grass beneath his feet wilted with each step, seared by the heat emanating from him. The air around him began to crackle, and he gritted his teeth until the crackle became a roar, and hot air gusted around his shoulders like a mad zephyr set free. Every mote of dust and errant insect drifting in the air flashed to flame as it touched his aura, and a shimmering ring of fire formed around his head. He strode the final few steps to draw level with the hut and laid eyes upon the soul who sat outside, hand frozen midway in dishing up his meal.

Eyazen let his power escape, channelled: the air behind him ignited, sending pillars of flame soaring skyward and lighting the entire valley with their crimson-yellow light. The flames send his shadow far before him, touching the wide-eyed watcher ahead of him and dancing on the ground between them as the fire quivered and roared behind. The wolf took in a deep breath and yelled in unison with it.

"I am Eyazen Firetouched! I have travelled across the far seas and the near mountains, over water and ice and sand! I have braved the trials of fire, and I have come to receive the secrets that are mine!"

He snapped his power shut, and the ridgetop plunged into darkness and silence. Only the barest glow from the coals of the fire before him remained, and they glimmered in the wide eyes of the unicorn who sat on a low bench.

They remained as statues for a moment, neither moving until the unicorn allowed his spoon to drop into the supper pot with a clang. "Goodness," he said. He lifted a hand to gesture at where the pillars of fire and burning halo had been suspended moments before. "That was very...yes, very nicely done. I like the...well, the voice was also a fun touch."

Eyazen smirked. It was fitting that his power should be immediately acknowledged. "My power is beyond any others."

"Oh?"

"Indeed. No mere tutor can educate me further, and no fellow student can best me in trials. I have no more to learn from them--and so I have sought you out."

One of the unicorn's eyebrows rose, and for a moment his horn seemed to glow with a warm light. "Sought me out? Poor old Luster? Surely not."

Eyazen smirked. He was familiar with this sort of Master from the academy. They prevaricated and deprecated and acted as though they were nothing but awkward old men--even as they bid forces beyond measure to bend to their wills. Age made them self-conscious, but that did not change the facts. That this Master was a unicorn was more than fitting; everyone knew unicorns were gifted with innate magical sensibilities. This Master looked far younger than others, too, but that made no difference. Eyazen was himself young, and see how far he had come!

"Yes, Master Luster," the wolf said. "You. I have come to claim the mysteries only you hold. The ones that shall make me the most powerful fire mage in the land. I alone found the map hidden in the academy library and deciphered its meaning. I have followed in your footsteps--and now I am here."

The unicorn nodded slowly, looking thoughtful. "Ah, yes. The secret map to the secrets of fire. Mhm. You have done...well. " He squinted. "You made it through all the trials, then?"

"Do I not stand before you as proof?"

Luster considered. "Yes, no, fair point. True, true." He sighed, pressing his hands to his thighs and getting to his feet. His hooves, the wolf noticed, had the same quality as his horn; they appeared to glow in even the weak light of the banked fire. "Well, alright then." He gestured at the wolf. "Off with them, then, and let us see."

Eyazen frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Take off your clothes."

The wolf stared uncomprehendingly at the unicorn, and the equine picked at his own threadbare coverings. "This."

"I know what clothes are," Eyazen snapped. He looked deep into the unicorn's eyes, seeking some hint of duplicity or merrymaking, but he saw nothing but simple curiosity. Then, suddenly he understood, and gave a small smile.

"I did not pass all the trials yet, did I?"

The unicorn shrugged. "Did you?"

The wolf was already pulling off his clothes, tossing first his jerkin aside and then his undershirt. His breeches came next, and he invested his sheath and balls with a bit of heat to keep the nip of the evening air from them. When all his clothing was piled in a heap, he took a proud stance and faced the unicorn. "There."

The unicorn was nodding thoughtfully, his eyes riding up and down the wolf's black-and-white form until he seemed to come to a decision. He met the wolf's eyes and smiled.

"No."

With that peremptory response, he turned away and sat back down before continuing to dish up his evening meal. Eyazen blinked in shock.

"What do you mean, no?"

The unicorn didn't even look up. "I cannot teach you any secrets."

The wolf took a step forward. "What? Why not? I have passed all the trials!" His heart thudded, and he felt his head swim. I have not come this far simply to be...rejected!

"You have passed many trials, I am sure--but you do not, I think, grasp the secrets."

"That is why I have come! To learn the secrets!"

The unicorn shook his head and took a slurping mouthful of stew before answering. "There are secrets, and there are secrets." He chewed thoughtfully, staring at the naked wolf, then swallowed. A thought seemed to come into his head, and he tipped it to one side. "Where, I wonder, do you think your power stems from?"

"From me," the wolf replied instantly. He had read every tome on fire magic half a dozen times. "My body is a conduit for energies that--"

"Stop. No."

"But that is the truth!"

"No, no, no!" In those three words, Eyazen heard the voice of every tutor he had ever had, and his ears folded back. "You parrot words from books you have read or from lectures by doddering fools!"

"Yes! And when they no longer had more answers for me, I determined to strike out and find--"

Luster cut him off again. "Where does your power stem from?"

Eyazen struggled to find a formulation of what he knew that would satisfy the unicorn. "From...uh...there is a...link between a realm of endless fire and--" He tried not to say it, but there was no other way. It was the truth. "--my body--"

A sharp gesture from the unicorn. "No!"

Eyazen's hands balled into fists...but then he deliberately unclenched them and breathed out the air he had been about to use to yell with. The unicorn wanted something from him, and it did not seem to be anything that he knew. So...ah.

"I...do not know?"

Luster smiled and cocked his head. "Well, if you say so."

The wolf thought frantically. "Can you--will you teach me?"

"Aaaah."

The unicorn's satisfied sound and wide smile was a relief to the wolf--which quickly turned to confusion as the unicorn laid his supper bowl aside, stood up again, and began undressing. His clothes were not as fine as the wolf's, and it took him far less time to reveal his nakedness--as well as the fact that he must perform a great deal of manual labour, for his form was trim and well-muscled. The equine stepped out to one side of the fire, making sure the wolf's eyes were following him. "Where does your magic stem from?" the equine asked again, rhetorically. He raised a hand--and then lowered it to his crotch and pointed at his very generous testicles.

"Here."

Eyazen stared, trying to understand, but he was not sure what he was supposed to see. The unicorn's balls--and sheath, for that matter--were coloured differently to the rest of him. Pale cream hair coated his belly, covered his shoulders and feathered his ankles and wrists, while his legs and arms were ash-grey. His genitals, though, were dark as charcoal. Only his hands--including the one pointing obviously at himself--shared that colour. The wolf tried to find a meaningful association there, then gave up. Even in the minor light of the failing fire, the equine's balls glistened. Their dark surface was shiny and smooth, filling the space between the unicorn's thighs, one hanging ever so slightly lower than the other. That wasn't unusual either, though.

Eyazen had not had much experience analysing equine testicles before, but nothing about this pair told him they were anything different or magical.

"I... I'm sorry, Master...I don't..." He shook his head, lost. "Does the magical link, uh, manifest in the...testicles?"

The unicorn shook his head. "Not for you. Not in you."

"Then I really don't--"

"You are almost powerless. You hold so little."

The wolf's hackles rose a little, and he pointed at the dying fire. With a burst of power, the flames roared up, taller than the roof of the hut and brighter than the sun, making the unicorn flinch.

"I am not powerless!"

"That...is not the power I mean." The unicorn cupped his testicles, rolling them about tenderly. "There is more power in here than those parlour tricks. Far more. More than you could ever manage...but, as I said. Not for you." He dropped his balls and thought for a moment, then nodded and turned away.

Eyazen growled in frustration. "Why not? Am I not ready? Are there more trials? Tell me what I must do, and I will do it!"

The unicorn looked back at the wolf. "Do you think it is that simple? To be told what to do and to do it?"

"I do not care what the challenge is, Master Luster! I am ready. I seek this power you offer. It is all I care to have!"

"Hm." The unicorn looked into the violent flames the wolf's explosive demonstration had created. His horn seemed to glow again, even brighter now. "There is a way...but it may not suit you."

"Tell me."

The unicorn crossed his arms and faced the wolf again. Abruptly, the wolf's eyes were drawn to the equine's crotch. The male's penis was beginning to drop, lazily emerging from its home. Pink at first, but darkening to the same charcoal as the flesh around it. It hung almost to the unicorn's knee, its thickness easily twice that of the wolf's own--which had emerged of its own accord as he watched the unicorn's arousal grow.

"Mate with me," Luster said, "and the power shall become yours. Transferred from my source to yours."

After all that...this was what it took? The wolf felt like laughing. "This I can do--and gladly."

The unicorn's smile grew a little more feral at how eager the wolf was. "You speak as if you have lain with many of my kind."

The wolf frowned."Of course not. The second trial says to eschew intimacy with any another."

"Ah, yes, naturally." The unicorn waved the confusion away. "I simply mean in the manner in which you...look upon me."

"The second trial is the most challenging for many. I watched some fail it within days, and others years. But I did not fail." The wolf stood a little more upright. "My body has known no sexual touch that is not my own. Because I learned the truth of the second trial, and thus persevered."

The unicorn slowly licked his lips. "Oh yes? And what truth was that?"

"One may do without intimacy if one has eager eyes, a skilled mind, and a soft paw."

"Ahhhh." The unicorn nodded in agreement. "Those are skills I well know. Is that why you can now look on me with a body that begs for its needs to be met, yet do not bend?"

"I do not begrudge my body the display of its needs, just as it does not begrudge me the indulgences of...my mind."

The unicorn clearly sensed the hesitation. "But?"

The wolf shrugged. "But...I cannot say I have not desired it, Master. And I am...not displeased that this is how the trials shall end."

"Mmh. You are a wise one. Worthy, I think, to receive the hidden power. But I must know more."

"Ask, Master, and I will answer."

The unicorn ran his hands down his sides, then cupped his dropped cock and hefted it. "Does my body please you?"

"It does, Master. As you can see." The wolf's erection bobbed before him, hard and crimson.

"Oh, yes." The unicorn's eyes drank his body in avidly. "Yes. You are pleased by me, and that pleases me. Yet, pleasant bodies should be warm, should they not? Not shivering in evening's dark." He gestured eagerly at the wolf. "Show me your command of your parlour tricks, and warm me."

The wolf sent a tendril of power forth and warmed the form of the unicorn, seeing the equine sigh and flex as the cold of the night was pushed back. "Warm me more!" the unicorn demanded. "As if I stand under a midday summer sun."

The wolf had to concentrate a little for that one, but he managed it. The unicorn spread his arms as if feeling the sunlight, and sweat began to form on his hair. The scent of him in the air grew abruptly stronger, disrupting the wolf's focus. Eyazen coughed, then breathed in again. The unicorn stallion's musk was potent and fragrant, more so than the stallions he had smelled before. He shook his head a little to discard it.

"Yes...excellent," Luster murmured, patting his warmed flesh. "You do have skill with your little power."

Eyazen bristled silently at the repeated diminution, but merely smiled. "Have you more questions, Master?"

"Yes. Come stand by me." The wolf did as told, and the scent of the unicorn grew even more potent. Eyazen could feel the heat--that he had imparted--emanating from the equine body as if it was an oven. "I also wish to know of your...mental indulgences."

"What of them?" One of the unicorn's hands set itself on the wolf's shoulder and began sliding gently down, feeling each muscle until it reached his rear and cupped one firm cheek.

"Tell me of them. Of your favourite." The unicorn's voice had lowered to a husky tenor now, and he licked his lips as often as he ran his eyes over the wolf's form. "When you lay in bed, alone...what do you dream of?"

There was only one answer the wolf could give to that: a fantasy he returned to again and again. "I am in the town. There is a tavern there."

"Mmhm. Go on."

"The tavern-keeper is a stallion. Not a unicorn, merely a horse. But strong and tall. He watches me with a glower, for he distrusts me. As he should. For when I have finished my ale, I say that I have no coin and beg his indulgence to return on another night and pay then."

"Tsk, tsk." Eyazen looked down at a slight touch to see the unicorn's penis grown hard, his flare now lying against the wolf's thigh. The equine was proportioned in the manner of all his kind--which was to say, far larger than it seemed he should be. The wolf felt a brief flash of worry but cast it aside.

There is one more trial, then, and it rests against me now.

"The tavern-keeper does not accept my offer and demands another payment. When I ask what it is, his hand grasps me here..." Eyazen gripped the unicorn's shaft. "And pulls me after him as we exit the tavern's rear door."

"Ah..."

"No sooner are we out of sight than he takes my head and pushes me down..."

The wolf felt two hands placed on his head. "As such?" the unicorn asked softly. The wolf nodded, and the pressure on his head increased until he sank to his knees and his eyes met the unicorn's stiff maleness. "And what then?" Luster asked.

Eyazen licked his lips. The unicorn, from this angle, was...massive. Too large? He was not sure. "He releases his member and presses it into my--hurk!" The wolf could not even finish the sentence before the unicorn pressed his cock against the wolf's lips and pushed the head within.

"Against you so, yes? Yes. Wonderful. He enjoyed your warmth just so, I have no doubt. Mmmh..." The unicorn's words dribbled away as he pushed his length deeper into the wolf's muzzle, fucking a few inches of horsecock in and out of him. The brief and bitter taste of his unwashed cock was soon licked off, leaving an altogether different one. The wolf sucked at the flesh as far as he could; the unicorn seemed almost oblivious to his presence, and gave the wolf no time to attend to him. "And of course," the unicorn continued, "you had to, because you owed him recompense...aaaah..."

Eyazen had to start breathing through his nose as the unicorn pressed his cock yet deeper, blocking the wolf's upper throat entirely. The equine was thickening now, his cock growing firmer and warmer, and his grip on the wolf's head stiffer. He was moving his hips less and moving the wolf's head more: thrusting it forward and back against his member like a shuttle on a loom. He still radiated the heat the mage had imbued him with, and it made his scent hang heavy on the air. The wolf's eyes lidded over as he was pushed again and again towards the source of most of the scent: the unicorn's thickly folded sheath.

He had spent years living in poorly ventilated dormitories with other students. He was long since inured to the scents that came with that. But this was something different. It didn't swim around in his nose and make his face crinkle in displeasure. It soaked into him, and flowed with his blood, down, down...directly into his penis. It was a male's natural scent, and it made promises that were already being fulfilled.

Eyazen's hands reached up to cup the unicorn's balls as the other male fucked his throat. The equine's sack hung low, and each nut sat heavy in its home. He could fill a palm with only one. They were warm, too: hotter even than the cock filling him. As befit a master of fire magic. He could feel the motion within, and his excitement grew as he imagined the powerful magic that must swirl inside. Magic that would soon be his. Power for him to command at will--

The unicorn suddenly pulled his entire cock free of the wolf's mouth, and Eyazen felt a surprising flash of disappointment. He looked up at the unicorn, who was squeezing his shaft and rubbing the tip against the wolf's fur.

"And what then does the tavern-keeper do?" he eagerly asked the wolf. "Does he empty himself in your maw? Does his seed fill your gullet and, hrm, drip out along your jowls?"

"...no. He would pull out, as you have done, and...take me by the scruff of my neck--" A sizeable equine hand instantly mirrored the words. "Yes. And...turn me about, to reveal my rear to him, and..."

The hand on his neck pulled him up until his head was alongside the unicorn's. The equine's other hand snaked down to his rear once more, massaging the muscles and teasing around the base of his tail. "Yes, yes, precisely...no maw for a stallion in need. No: more is needed. A deeper berth, hrm, for our grand vessels and the cargo they must unload." He nuzzled suddenly at the wolf's neck. "You must take me deep within you, wolf--all of me. My gift, my secret, it must not escape you...if you wish to have my power."

Eyazen had--for only a moment--forgotten why he was here and why he was doing this. The growing pleasure of the closeness with the unicorn had made his mind drift...but now he remembered. His heart began to thud, and his breath grew shallow. "I will take all of you, Master, and I shall not spare a single droplet."

The unicorn nodded eagerly, and the hand teasing at the wolf's tail snuck under it to find the hole there, making the wolf gasp. "Turn, and I shall make it so."

Eyazen turned and walked a few steps to a rock large enough to brace himself again. He spread his legs wide and lifted his tail. "Give me your power, Master--and your cock. All of it."

A snort of desire from the unicorn, and then Eyazen felt his heat radiating against him once more as his body grew close...followed by the great thickness of the equine's member teasing under his tail. Slippery and wet with oozing need. The unicorn felt even larger there than he had while stuffed down the wolf's throat--but the time for second thoughts had passed. Eyazen braced his hands against the rock. "I am ready, Master."

The first entry was the fiercest, making the wolf shudder and cry out. The unicorn was so large. And yet...when the first inch was through, when the stallion's growing flare was in him, the pain faded a little. The shaft was not as tricky...and when the tip of the other male's long cock found something inside him that made him gasp and his legs quiver like jelly, why, the pain no longer mattered.

"W-what...is that?" he croaked.

"Magic," the unicorn said simply, pressing another inch of himself inside the wolf. The wolf felt a ring of flesh push through his hole, and realised with wonder that most of the stallion was now inside him. He clenched and felt it...and heard the equine moan.

"Oh, yes, Eyazen...more of that..."

Eyazen clenched again, more tightly, and the male fucking him whinnied with pleasure. The final few inches of equine penis were forced inside the wolf, making him grunt as the thickness of the shaft's base tested how wide he'd already been stretched...but then the unicorn was in.

All of him. Just like he'd said.

"I am in you, wolf," Luster said huskily. His hand settled on the wolf's shoulder. "And not a moment too soon. The need in me...it has been unbearable this season. My rut has felt endless and insatiable. How I hoped that a, uh, a diligent pupil such as yourself would come to me for...education. I have much magic to offer you, Eyazen. Do not let a single droplet remain inside me or fall to the ground. And...do not allow yourself to climax, wolf, lest the power pass through you and leave you."

And before the wolf could reply, Luster began to fuck in earnest.

The wolf was glad for the rock to brace against, for the unicorn did not hold back. The first thrust withdrew him up to the edge of his flare and thrust back in with a force that pushed Eyazen against the rockface and punched the air from his lungs. A moment later: again. The unicorn's hand on his shoulder served only to brace the equine himself against falling over, and did nothing for the wolf. Soon Eyazen had flattened himself against the rock, arms outstretched, clawing into the rock for purchase as the unicorn's mighty thrusts hammered into him without end.

The feelings were nothing the wolf had ever experienced; his self-pleasure was like rough sandpaper in comparison. Every rough thrust of that now-enormous penis inside him made his legs weak and drew a bleating cry of disbelief and lust from the wolf. The flare inside him felt twice as big as it truly was--he hoped, lest it tear him apart!--and its motion inwards pushed aside anything in its way. The wolf's guts churned until he felt he was made of nothing but the unicorn's cock: its length the only thing he felt, and its flare--bulging his belly with each thrust--the only organ he possessed.

When he felt his own climax growing, panic filled him. The unicorn had commanded him not to ejaculate, but the profound pleasure of their mating was driving him inexorably towards that peak. With a groan, Eyazen forced his focus away from his own satisfaction and towards other things. The cold wind against his cock, sandwiched between belly and boulder. The great things he hoped to accomplish with his full powers.

The remarkable libido of the unicorn.

The wordless noises behind Eyazen were those of a lust-maddened beast. The unicorn grunted and whinnied and snorted as if he was a rutting stud who had finally conquered a mate and now sought to ensure they would carry his colts. His many, many colts. His fierce thrusts were growing faster, and the wolf's heartbeat began to increase with them. What he had so long desired was nearly here. He shut his eyes and focused on the feeling of being filled, over and over, by the unicorn cock. He would remember this moment--this night--for all his life.

The night that he gained his full powers.

The unicorn's thrusts grew uneven, and his whinnies and cries condensed to mere snorts of hot breath, slapping the sweaty fur on Eyazen's back. Luster was trying to push even deeper, the wolf could feel, but he had no more length to give. Deep, and hard; his flare almost able to touch the rock through the wolf's belly now. Deep, and hard; the wolf fought fiercely not to come too close to his own edge as the equine penis scraped over the magical spot inside him. Deep, and hard, and he paused and shivered, and Eyazen held his breath...

A final explosive snort, and a huge breath in, and a whinny of triumph and cresting desire that shattered the silence of the night and echoed off the mountains bounding the valley walls. Eyazen felt a new heat in him, hotter even than the unicorn's cock, and he cried out in ecstasy as Luster began to cum inside him with huge, fat squirts of semen that filled the wolf and warmed every inner part of him.

Luster had not overstated his need; his ejaculation lasted for many long seconds. Eyazen felt the weight of the fluid in his belly, and he whimpered with joy. He was bulging with the stallion's gift, near overflowing with it. The magic was in him; at last, it was in him. He felt every squirt and blessed both it and what was to come.

The hand on his shoulder squeezed vaguely as the unicorn's climax eventually came to an end, and the wolf nuzzled against it, panting.

"Thank you, Master...thank you..."

"Did you climax?" The unicorn's own pants made it hard for him to speak, but he forced the words out with fierce urgency.

The wolf shook his head. It had been perilously close by the end, but he had managed to prevent it by forcing his sensitive member hard against the rock, ruining his end. "No, no. As you said. I kept it all within. The power is contained."

"Good, oh, good." The unicorn seemed hugely relieved about that. "Don't want it to...yeah. Bend...hrrr...bend forward, wolf..."

The wolf did as asked, and the unicorn awkwardly withdrew himself. Eyazen clenched his muscles as soon as he felt the flare exit, trapping every drop of the unicorn's sacred semen within him, as he'd been instructed to. Then he yelped as the equine spun him around.

"Not a drop," Luster said, pointing down at his semen-coated cock. The wolf nodded quickly in understanding, dropping to both knees and promptly lifting the enormous equine dick to his mouth to lick it clean. The flare had grown monstrous, and he was stunned to know he had had that inside him.

When only spittle still coated the penis, he allowed it to fall and hang heavily between the unicorn's legs. Luster, still panting heavily, patted the wolf's head. "As you desired, wolf. It is done."

With a thrill, the wolf spun out a thread of power to dry his sweaty body. It did not feel any more potent than before. But he could not focus too much on magic, lest he lose control of his muscles and thus the unicorn's gift.

"It does not feel...any different," he said carefully.

Luster blinked and shrugged. "It may take time for the power to...absorb. Fear not: you have now gained every drop of secret power I possess."

The wolf bowed his head. "Thank you, Master."

"Yes, yes..." The unicorn looked back at his hut. "You, uh, did interrupt my dinner, however. So I...would like to return to that."

"Oh." The wolf blinked. "Yes, of course." They stared at one another for a moment. "Er...maybe I...join you?"

"Oh, I do not think that is wise," the unicorn said, winding his fingers around one another awkwardly. "It is best, I think...the magic, you know. Solitude is...a teacher. Of sorts."

Eyazen nodded slowly. Yes. He could focus on his burgeoning power better if alone. "Very well, Master," he said, getting--carefully--to his feet and bowing once more. "Thank you once more. I shall not fail the potential of your gift. All shall know the name Eyazen Firetouched!"

"Firefucked."

The wolf blinked. "I don't..."

"You... that's your name now. Now that you...have your power. Eyazen Firefucked." The unicorn picked up his unfinished bowl of stew, poured it back into the pot, and stirred the coals with a stick as the wolf stared in mild disbelief at him.

"Very...well," Eyazen said slowly. "Everyone shall know the name...Eyazen Firefucked."

"I am certain of it."

---

The wolf had been gone for hours when a hot wind descended on the unicorn's hut. The equine rose from his bed, where he had been resting and reminiscing, and went outside.

Suspended atop the column of roiling air was a ball of flame, which winked out when it touched the ground to reveal a kobold within, dressed in orange and red robes. He was entirely unharmed by the fire that had surrounded him. The unicorn bowed deeply at him.

"Good evening, master."

The kobold nodded absently, then sniffed and made a face.

"No, no, no!" he cried, in an echo of what the unicorn had said hours before.

"Master? I do not--"

"Stop. No. Luster...please tell me I do not smell--"

"--stew?" The unicorn quickly pulled a scoop of the food from the pot over the fire and offered it to the kobold, but the small reptile waved it away.

"A stew of sorts, yes. Your stew." When the unicorn only looked away awkwardly, the kobold sighed and flicked his tongue out in annoyance. "Luster, I have told you how I dislike the scent of...that. Please make use of the river and not the area where I await potential acolytes."

"Yes, Master. Apologies, Master. My rut was...overpowering."

The kobold stuck a tongue out in distaste. "I would not wish to hear more." He looked around the camp. "At least you have not left evidence of it on the ground this time. Perhaps you do listen."

"Oh yes, Master. Always."