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The thing that stood out to Hyla during her first two weeks of being a pleasure slave was how broad the notion of "pleasure" was. She expected to spend much of her time having sex, and there was certainly plenty of that (the orgy had seen to it), but a shocking number of the customers who hired her took their pleasure in other ways. One diminutive possum only wanted to use her back as a footrest while he conducted his business, showcasing his stature by being able to have the badger warrior on hands and knees before him. Once her broad form was used as a serving table: plates were stacked all over her chest and belly while she lay motionless underneath. There was also the time an art instructor hired her as a model, berating his students to pay attention to the curve of her muscles.

Hyla found herself looking forward to the new days of work. Her dreams were quieter. The darkness in her mind had receded. The world was not perfect, but it looked far better than it had when she wished for nothing but blood and mindless destruction to soothe the pain she felt.

The one thing that had not changed, or at least, changed very little, was her understanding of the local tongue. Despite her best efforts and many nightly lessons from Azair, the badger could say little more than "Yes, sir," and "No, ma'am." Any other words tumbled out of her head as soon as she had learned them. Before each day's work, the customer's desires had to be translated through either Azair or Colfor, as there was no one else at the House of Totukepsan who spoke badger, once Jun Two-Sails had left. Thankfully, the requests were often so simple that Hyla could understand the gist through simple gestures. And the art instructor was a teacher in the purest sense and could make himself understood through a glare alone.

But that was insufficient for the purposes of the House, and one morning Colfor sent Hyla and Azair out across the city with a simple mission: take Hyla to the library so she could learn the local language. How they were expected to do this, and what a library was--literally translated into the badger equivalent, "den of books"--was a mystery to the warrior, but the fox accepted a satchel of money from the majordomo, hanging it from her shoulder, and set out.

In her time at the House of Totukepsan, Hyla had never been beyond the hill that the temple and great tree were located on, but she followed behind the confident footsteps of the gray-furred fox, focusing on the swaying tail. On their way they dressed in a simple tunic plucked from a warehouse, as beyond the hill their typical near nudity was discouraged.

"The city is wonderful," Azair said. And there was an extra spring in her step as she said it. "There's so many different people here. And so many shops. If there's time, I should take you to a favorite of mine."

Hyla smiled to herself as she tried to imagine just what the vixen's favorite shop was. She could imagine a vendor who specialized in all kinds of sexual accouterments, or a bathhouse where her luscious gray fur would be properly tended to. But then an image sprang to mind of the vixen curled around a large cup of tea, breathing in the thickly spiced scent. "Are we allowed to leave the House?"

"If we clear it with Colfor. He encourages us to visit the city on our off day. He says it's good advertising for the House's services. And we have a small allowance to spend on what we want." The fox pinched her fingers together as she said small and laid her ears flat. It was a very small allowance.

The base of the hill opened up onto a great bazaar, with vendors shouting their wares, including to the two slaves: even they could see the way Azair's satchel swayed heavily with its no doubt lucrative contents. Just next to the bazaar was a large squat building that Hyla recognized as the slave market. This she deliberately looked away from. She could not remember it well, but even the sight of it drew up memories of blood in her mouth and a snarl on her lips.

Azair took her hand and guided them both past the slave market and into the city proper. Hyla was immediately struck by how much magic there was in a city. Magic in the world came in many forms, she knew: gods, witches, monsters--but the most common was graystone. Graystone was, as its name suggested, gray. It was unnaturally gray. The same hue no matter how light or dark it became.

On its own, graystone did nothing special, but when inscribed with the right glyphs it could perform a variety of functions. She'd seen small amounts of graystone around the House of Totukepsan, used to provide dim light in lieu of torches or candles. Out here, on the city streets, she saw legions of carts, all powered by a large wheel of graystone at the front, enchanted to continually turn and pull their cargo: slow, but reliable. Hyla herself had once had "a bit of gray" in her pouch. Properly maintained, it would start fires better than flint, and on the bitterest of cold nights, it could be held tight in the hands to stave off frostbite.

Such uses of magic were practical, but Hyla also remembered a few more fantastical examples. There was a trader who sold her sett a wonderful little mechanical doll powered by a piece of graystone, which danced and twirled all on its own to the endless fascination of the kits.

All badgers knew the importance of graystone. It was a major resource of their lands. Explorers from other lands had long ago discovered vast veins of graystone beneath the rocky soil, and had discovered at the same time that badgers did not take well to invaders. Armies stormed north to claim the land, and were beaten back. Thieves came silently to spirit away the valuable mineral, and woke to badger blades at their throats. Swindlers came to cheat and steal with honeyed words, and found themselves marching south again without even the clothes on their back for comfort.

Ages passed and the lesson was never learned: the badgers were strong, and you could not break them.

Hyla had to beat that bloody lesson into many an enemy. It was far too common.

Why, it was due to the graystone, Hyla thought, that her village had been attacked. It was due to the graystone that he died...

Hyla nearly pitched forward and fell right there on the street. The welling darkness which had slumbered in her thoughts for much of the past two weeks had rushed up quick and eager to claim her. The cacophony of noise on the streets battered her. There were too many people. Too many noises. Too many things. Too many memories. And Hyla was suddenly eager to tear out throats to make it all stop.

She felt a tug on her arm. Hyla whirled on her attacker, fangs bared.

"It's me! It's just me." Azair spoke carefully and moved very slowly to take hold of Hyla's hand. "Let's take the back roads."

Hyla let herself be led off the street. Blood thudded in her ears. But with every step the thump of it quieted until there was just the gentle beat of their feet on the ground. "Azair, I..."

"It's okay." The vixen glanced up, but her ears and focus stayed trained on the road ahead of her. "I forget that not everyone enjoys the city as much as me."

Hyla reached out and gripped the vixen's shoulder. Her touch was tighter than she wanted it to be. "Don't blame yourself. It was my fault."

Azair reached up and put a hand on the warrior's own. "No, it wasn't," she said, and there was a surprising force in her voice that accepted no disagreement. Hyla found herself letting go, not only of her friend's shoulder, but also of some of the guilt she felt. Had Azair not been a slave, Hyla thought, she would have made a fine leader.

To quell the remaining tension, Hyla asked about the various smaller shops they were passing. Many had signage but no clear indication of what was sold inside, so Azair happily informed her of all the joys the city had to offer: bakeries and patisseries, tea shops and coffee shops, hookah lounges and tobacconists, perfumers and soap makers, milliners, clothiers, and jewelers.

After being told at length of the delights of a small corner bakery, Hyla commented offhand, "I expected more guards."

"Guards?"

"In the city. We are slaves of the House of Totukepsan," she said, making it clear that she was property of the House, and not of the god himself. "What is there to stop us from escaping?"

"Nothing," Azair said. She lifted a hand to the leather collar that circled her neck. "The only thing that marks us as slaves is this. A collar. No lock. Nothing to stop us from taking it off and disappearing into the city. Nothing except the trade."

"Trade?"

"Like you made with Totukepsan when you first came here." Azair lifted her chin and modulated her voice, first to sound like the god of fair trades, and then to sound like Hyla herself. "He said, 'Stay and earn your honor back, or leave and lose it forever,' and you said, 'I will never serve a god. I will serve your channeler instead.' You made a deal with him. Almost everyone who works for him has."

Hyla remembered back to their conversation in the bathhouse on that first day. "I thought you said most who worked for him were not there by choice."

Azair stopped and turned suddenly, looking right up into the eyes of the badger. "Did you have a choice? Did you really?"

Hyla shook her head quietly.

"He's the god of fair trades. He's good at making deals you can't refuse."

"What deal did you make?"

Azair's ears flattened and she turned away. "Protection," she said under her breath, and said it in a way that told Hyla that she would say nothing more on the matter. Hyla did not want to aggravate her further by inquiring.

So they walked.

And they walked and walked and walked. Hyla had seen the city sprawling out away from the House of Totukepsan, but had not realized how big it all was until now. Every time she was sure it had to stop, because there could not be enough people to fill it, it continued on with even more people.

Azair tried to explain, in her broken and incomplete knowledge of the badger tongue, to Hyla, with her broken and incomplete knowledge of the wider world, how they were traveling to a very large school. It was a very large school, and people would stay there for years, studying words and numbers and stars and mountains and peoples and...

Hyla had turned away slightly, trying to unfocus her eyes so she could better envision this strange place the fox was telling her about. She heard a sudden shout of pain from Azair and whipped around.

The fox was clutching her shoulder, where the band that had held the satchel of money hung. It was gone.

Nearby, a hooded figure scrambled away as fast as his legs would carry him.

In one instant, the badger processed the situation, and in the next instant, she was running after the thief.

The figure bolted down a side street. He was a feline, Hyla could tell, from the tail that bobbed behind him. Fast and nimble, but not built for stamina. Instead of trying to outpace the badger in the open side-street, he dove back towards the crowded main road. There he could dart around, weaving through the throngs of people with deft, quick motions. When that did not build enough distance from his pursuer, he pulled down wobbly stands and toppled stacks of cartons. Anything that could be thrown to the ground quickly was sent crashing. Soon that included any people in the way.

His efforts to escape might have been successful had he not been chased by a badger. Badgers were not especially fast or agile. In a straight sprint or a long-distance run, she would lose, but the feline's attempts to throw her off only assisted her. He had to slow down to throw things in her way, while Hyla would simply crash right through any obstacle; he had to dodge around the slow-moving crowd, while Hyla just shoved her way straight through without hesitation.

The feline had barely made it two blocks before Hyla picked him up by the scruff of the neck. He bit and clawed at her to free himself, but Hyla rolled her eyes at the pathetic attempts to harm her: there was no strength in his attacks.

No, Hyla realized after a moment more of staring at him, there was no strength at all. Now that she had an opportunity to look at him up close, she examined him closely. He was an ocelot, small by feline standards, but this specimen was smaller still. His form was emaciated under the haggard clothes he wore. He had expended what little energy he had in the short race, and was panting and wheezing from the exertion.

Azair finally caught up with the pair of them, making apologies to the crowd that Hyla had shoved aside in her chase. She snatched the bag out of the ocelot's grip and checked that all its contents were still there. "I guess we had better take him to the police."

"No."

"No?"

"He's dying. If we take him to the police, he will likely perish."

Azair looked at the ocelot's emaciated form. He hissed at her. "So we just let him go?"

Hyla tapped the bag Azair held. "Do we have more money than we need for the day?"

She nodded. "Colfor always sends a bit extra, just in case something unexpected comes up."

Hyla marched over to the nearest street-side food vendor, holding the fighting ocelot in her outstretched arm. With her arm fully extended, he couldn't reach her body with his hands and couldn't reach the ground with his feet. Eventually he gave up and just hissed at her.

The food vendor, who had seen the destruction the thief had caused, looked warily at the pair. Hyla selected a fruit from the stand, fresh and ready to eat. "Pay him for it," Hyla told Azair as she pushed the food into the ocelot's hand.

The thief looked at it for a brief moment before stuffing it into his mouth, nearly choking from the speed with which he ate, as if terrified the food would be ripped away any second.

The merchant began to raise his hands in protest, and then just as quickly went silent and backed down: Hyla had started to growl at him. She may have worn the House collar around her neck, but the depth and intensity of her growl were still that of a badger warrior.

With Azair's help in determining what money they had to spare, Hyla spent every bit of it on travel-ready, long-lasting rations and on a sack to store them in. She pushed the bundle into the thief's hand and then let go of his scruff.

The ocelot darted just out of grasp. His eyes flickered between the bundle of food and Hyla. Then he was gone, running down a side alley.

Hyla felt satisfied. It was one of the rules of the badger lands: justice had to be harsh, but compassion had to be as boundless as the arctic ice. "I'll explain the situation to Colfor and make amends when we return."

Azair simply smiled at this. "You know how when we first met, you told me you were worried about hurting me?"

Hyla remembered with a sinking feeling in her heart at how she had nearly attacked the fox earlier.

"That," she said, gesturing to the spot the thief had been, "was why I knew you never would."

* * *

Hyla and Azair walked the rest of the way to their destination in relative silence, with the fox's hand resting on the badger's back, just above her tail. Doubts crept into her mind about the thief. Not in her decision to let him go; she knew that was right. But she had paid for his food with money that was not her own, and she had no idea how that would go over with the god of trades. It was not as though she could work any harder to pay off a debt. Only Azair's steady hand kept her from worrying too much.

The buildings here grew sparser and larger. They were approaching another nexus of the city. And then all of a sudden the road gave way to a plaza adjoining a series of connecting structures that was the school Azair had been describing. They walked up to one of the nearer ones.

Standing just to the side of the front door was a detailed mannequin, like the kind she had seen in clothiers' windows in the city, but the level of detail seemed incredible. It did not just have arms, but hands and fingers, ears and a mouth, even a long tail that coiled about a leg. Hyla blinked as she realized it was made out of graystone, wearing some very simple clothes. And then she nearly leapt back when the mannequin turned and waved a greeting as she got close.

It took the badger a moment to realize that this was like the dancing doll from her home. Except life size, and far more mobile. The automaton did not react to her other than to beckon her once more to enter.

"Sorry," Azair said in a sheepish whisper. "I should have remembered to warn you."

Inside was the library. Students of the school, wearing a ceremonially folded robe of deep blue, were everywhere, reading, taking notes, conversing, and on occasion just staring deeply into nothing as they thought; and amongst all of them were dozens more of the graystone automatons like the greeter at the door. On occasion, a student would walk up to one of the graystone figures and speak slowly and carefully to it. Then the figure would spring to life, scaling the tall shelves and plucking out the requested tome to deliver to the student.

At the center of it all was a librarian, a ringtail in a grubby and stained tunic who was peering at a massive book over a pair of glasses, long striped tail curled around his lap. His muzzle was set and his lips taut around a gently smoking pipe. As he lifted a hand to turn the page, Hyla saw that the right arm was also made of graystone, articulated and jointed like the automatons filling the building. Hyla realized, belatedly, that all the automatons she had seen were all ringtails and all male, like lesser copies of the librarian himself.

Azair sprung up to the librarian's desk and wrapped her arms around the surprised ringtail, who looked a touch irritated at being taken from his reading. Then the fox stepped back to make introductions. "Hyla," she said, and then gestured to the ringtail, "Oddy. Oddy, Hyla."

The ringtail's perturbed expression did not change. "Odoji," he corrected.

"Oddy," Azair insisted to Hyla in a whisper.

Hyla's glanced between the two who were now both staring at her. She had to make a decision. "Odoji," she decided, with a small bow to the ringtail.

He looked somewhat smug about that, and if Azair was at all annoyed by Hyla choosing him over her, she didn't show it.

Then the ringtail rattled off something in the local tongue which Hyla could only stare dumbfoundedly at. He looked surprised, and then angry, and then turned to Azair and said one thing Hyla understood: "No."

Azair did not argue, but instead simply handed over the payment and said something that involved the word "Totukepsan." Odoji sighed and looked inside. His eyes went wide. He looked at Hyla, then looked in the bag again. He adjusted his glasses, took them off and checked them for smudges, put them back on. Then, for a long minute, he just stared into the bag with his pipe hanging limp from his muzzle.

Just when Hyla thought that the ringtail had forgotten them, he accepted the payment, cinching the bag shut and gesturing for fox and badger to follow him into the back of the library. Hyla gave a quick questioning look to the fox, who only shrugged with a smile and went after the ringtail.

Past a surprisingly heavy door was what Hyla could only describe as a workshop. It was a massive space filled with half-built automatons and mechanical devices she could not name. On one wall were a succession of graystone arms, each one more refined than the last: prototypes for the magical prosthetic that he now wore. On an adjacent wall were a succession of graystone automatons, which grew in complexity along with the arms. As the arms were refined, the life-size replicas were too, and the lessons learned in building the full bodies were applied to the arm as well.

Hyla suddenly understood why the ringtail's tunic was so dirty. At a guess, she figured the ringtail was a librarian professionally, but this was where his heart and interest truly lay.

But Hyla had hardly a moment to enjoy the sights before the trio turned sharply and headed for a smaller room attached to the workshop. Here, Odoji paused at the door and looked suspiciously over his shoulder at Hyla. Azair interceded and whispered something into the ringtail's ear, who finally relented and opened the door.

"What did you say?" Hyla asked.

"This is Odoji's private workshop. I told him that I trusted you."

Then the two stepped through and Hyla understood why this was the private workshop. Strewn about the room were various bondage devices that Hyla had come to recognize during her short stint as a pleasure slave. The difference was that here many of the implements were supplemented with graystone, whose function the badger could only guess at. Azair was happy to demonstrate some of them. She pulled the badger over to a spot where several hip harnesses hung from the wall each with a unique dildo hanging from them. She held out the badgers hand to a short graystone phallus and Hyla felt a prickle as her fingers touched it. It was like the feeling just before a static electric shock, tingling wherever it touched. She felt a warmth inside of herself as she imagined how that would feel thrusting into her.

But Azair had already skipped over to show Hyla the next thing. It was another graystone dildo but this one was mounted on a strange device of gears and cogs. Hyla only understood its purpose once Azair knelt down and activated it by turning on the self-turning graystone wheel: the dildo began to piston up and down in persistent stroking motions.

"That one is my favorite," the vixen said.

"I can see why."

Behind them, Odoji coughed.

He had changed slightly, shrugging off the grubby tunic. Underneath he wore a restrictive chest binder and plain, functional trousers. Hyla could see where the graystone prosthetic gave way to flesh and blood midway along the upper arm. The ringtail gestured for the two to step into the middle of the room, where the wooden flooring gave way to a large chunk of graystone seemingly embedded beneath the building.

As they approached, Hyla felt a strangeness in the air. It had a slight shimmer to it, like a mirage. It started just at the edge of the circle of graystone in the floor and Hyla found herself not wanting to cross the threshold.

Once again, Azair took the initiative and stepped out ahead of Hyla. All at once the fox's small body shivered. She bent low and groaned out, her voice crooning in pure lust.

The badger blinked. She had had sex with Azair several times by this point, and seen Azair fuck several more times, but she had never before heard such animalistic sounds coming for her, nor seen such a feral lust in her eyes. She held out a hand. "It's okay," she said, voice slurring. "It just makes you feel really good."

Hyla looked down at the graystone, then over at the ringtail, who was tapping his foot impatiently. She reached out and took hold of Azair's proffered hand.

The sensation as her fingers crossed the barrier was like holding onto the embers of a fire, except they were within her hand, not simply held in her palm. She felt heat flowing through every neuron. It tingled and shivered as it flowed up her arm and then when it reached her mind, Hyla felt the tendrils of lust wrapping around her brain. Her jaw fell open, her tongue slid out. She panted as the urge rose in her to have sex. No, not sex. To fuck. No, not fuck, to rut. It was deep, primeval need.

The badger took a step forward so her whole body was on the dais and submersed in the sexual heat of the graystone. She wrapped Azair tight in her arms and kissed her with animalistic fierceness, one hand on her breast and the other on her hip.

She was confused when Azair pulled away. The fox looked up to her with a needy smile. "Let's get you ready."

Ready. For what?

And then she remembered Odoji waiting just past the dais, and she remembered the library and somehow she was supposed to learn a language. Learn a language while being sex-crazed to the point of nearly forgetting her own name?

She couldn't keep her hands off the fox even as Odoji directed the vixen to set things up on the dais, strange mechanical things that Hyla did not understand. It wasn't until the vixen looped cuffs around her wrists and pulled the badger's arms high that she stopped groping her. Hyla was vaguely conscious of her mouth whispering to the fox about how she just wanted to get fucked. The vixen pulled one of the mechanical devices between Hyla's legs. The badger had to spread her knees slightly for it to fit, fitting atop it like it was a saddle. There was a moment of clarity, where she wondered what it was, then the mechanisms activated and a slim graystone dildo rose from the center and plunged straight into Hyla's sex.

The chains holding Hyla's arms creaked and groaned as she tried to reach down and touch the spot that had become a nexus of raw, ecstatic pleasure. The graystone was thrusting in and out and augmenting the lust-inducing aura with a mainline of pleasurable energy straight into her sex.

Hyla's breath caught in her throat and her legs squeezed tight around the device beneath her. She felt herself rocketing towards climax faster than she had ever dreamed possible.

And then it stopped.

She was horny. She was mad with desire still. But the toy was no longer thrusting into her and no longer pumping raw pleasure into her system. She had stopped just shy of orgasm, felt it pulled out from under her. She was moaning, crooning at the top of her lungs in need and not caring who heard.

Hyla blinked. Out on the far side of the room she saw a heavenly sight of Azair sitting on a crate, two fingers slipped deep into her snatch and thrusting wildly.

Then her eyes focused closer to hand. In the air, shimmering before her was an image of a pine tree. Her ears turned and focused on it. There was a word being repeated over and over, insistently. Repeat, pause, repeat, pause.

Need was burning between Hyla's legs. With her arms raised high and the device pushing her up on her feet slightly, she had little room to move her hips around and grind back onto the toy. That was what she wanted, not this silly image and sillier word.

"Say it." Azair's voice was breathy with need as she fingered herself deeply. "Say the word."

Hyla rolled her eyes, but tried to enunciate the strange word being repeated endlessly. The strange voice went silent. And an instant later the ecstatic spike of pleasure resumed its pulsing. Hyla rode the waves of pleasure with great thrusting motions of her hips, only for them to stop suddenly again.

There was a new image, and a new word being repeated. Quicker this time, she said the word.

The pleasure returned then disappeared, a new image appeared, and the word was repeated only once before Hyla said it.

The cycle repeated five or so times, with Hyla growing more needy and less patient with each repeat.

Then an image reappeared, but with no spoken word to accompany it. Hyla understood, dimly through the haze of lust and sex, that she had to repeat the word she had said for that image before. But she couldn't remember what it was. All she could do was rock in place and strain against the bindings to try and get the pleasure restarted. Eventually the image blinked away and the whole process started from the beginning. Hyla's lusts were such that she could barely process the words and images, they just became part of the instinctual haze of lust. When the images showed up without the words, she just barked out the phrases without even fully processing them.

The reward was a lance of pleasure that shot all the way up her spine, a sensation of orgasm without the relief it brought. She was just as needy as she had been, and when next she saw the images and words, she called out the words as fast as she could.

And so it went, word by word, image by image, Hyla learned the language through sheer sexual need. The rewards of almost-but-not-quite orgasms grew more spaced out over time, and left the badger more desperate than ever. At first, the words were simple objects, but they gradually progressed into more intricate ones, then verbs and actions, then simple compound structures, conjugation, and so on. All of it bored past Hyla's conscious thinking mind, thanks to Odoji's skills, and was learned instinctually.

Hyla reawoke with a start when the lust-inducing aura of the graystone was turned off. As Odoji helped her out of the bindings, the badger fell to the ground, dazed and astounded at what had just happened. "I... know... words!" she said, in a tongue not her own.

"Yessss," Odoji said, glancing down at her, "but we still need to work on speed, grammar, and elocution."

Hyla blinked at the aural assault. "I... do not know... those... words..." As she spoke she found her toes curling, a shiver running along her spine. "Why... do I... feel sexy... when I speak?"

The ringtail waved a hand in the air with no concern. "A side effect of the process."

Hyla stared blankly at him.

"A by-product."

Hyla continued to stare blankly.

Odoji sighed and rubbed his temples. He spoke clearly, enunciating every last syllable. "The device taught you with sex, so the words feel sexy to use. This will fade with time."

Hyla nodded. She understood that.

"You have been here for hours. You should eat and drink before we continue." Odoji walked back out into the main workshop. Azair was there, finishing up a meal in the small kitchenette. Herbs and fresh meats were sizzling away in a pan, heated on top of a large slab of graystone.

Despite the rumbling in her stomach, Hyla found herself more attracted to Azair herself than to the thought of lunch. The badger wrapped her arms around the little gray fox and pressed in close, feeling the heat of the vixen's body against her own warm and wet sex.

The nimble fox wriggled out of her grasp and playfully swatted her hands away. "This is hot," she said, speaking as Odoji did in the local tongue. "Don't make me burn myself."

Hyla leaned back and watched the vixen deftly move the ingredients around in the pan to make room for some eggs. "I want to see more of this... library."

"No, you don't," Odoji said flatly. "You can't read. You remember there were some good looking men out there and are hoping to find someone to sate your needs."

Something in Hyla was irked by the ringtail's direct speech. She returned the directness with directness of her own. "Yes. Is there anything wrong in that?"

"You shouldn't climax now. It will disrupt the procedure."

Hyla ground her teeth. She was horny. She was incredibly horny, and here the ringtail was telling her not to take care of her own needs.

Ever the mediator, Azair trailed a hand on Hyla's hip. "We can play. We just can't finish."

Hyla acted before she thought, lips on Azair's. She nibbled along the vixen's muzzle and brushed along her whiskers.

She was interrupted by the sound of a clang as Odoji took the pan off the heat and set it down heavily on the large table. "You'll burn it if you keep that up. Hold on. I'll get you something."

Hyla lost her sense of time as she began kissing and rubbing all over the vixen's body, only brought out of it by another clang as Odoji had returned and set something down on the table. Hyla was confused what it was until Azair, with a wide grin on her face, pulled it up and showed it off as a hip harness with one of the graystone dildos attached to the front. Hyla ran her fingers experimentally over it and found it to be surprisingly warm to the touch and pulsing ever so gently as if it were a real shaft. "This is one I enjoy using," Odoji explained, with an uncharacteristic blush in his ears.

She didn't need to be asked; she let Azair wrap the harness over her hips. The buckles had to be loosened as Hyla's thighs were far thicker than the slim ringtail's. And when she was done, Hyla looked down over herself, happy that the straps were tinted black and partially disappeared into her fur. The graystone was still, well, gray, but beside that it looked like a natural part of her.

Hyla idly wondered if this was the sort of view he had...

She did not let herself complete that thought. There would be time, later, to feel the pain of that thought. Right now she had a fox to fuck.

She hefted the vixen up under the shoulders, holding her so that the throbbing artificial shaft rested against her belly. Then she casually tossed Azair onto the nearby table, making sure she landed in a spot clear of food or utensils. Hyla reached over and pinned her arms to the table, leaning over her much smaller form. The badger enjoyed the way Azair wriggled underneath her, the way she would bite her lip as she looked down at the new shaft between Hyla's legs.

But even sex-crazed though she was, she did not break straight into a rut. She took her time to tease the fox and relish in the sexual potency of the moment. She ground her shaft back and forth, pressing it against the vixen's folds but never entering her. The vixen's arms began to tremble and her head lashed from side to side. Her lips were tightly sealed, but the way she stared up with need in her eyes, she may as well have been begging Hyla to stick it inside her.

Hyla obliged the unspoken command. She crossed Azair's arms over her head so she could pin them down with one hand, then used the other to guide her shaft in, as she had seen males do before. She did not get quite the tactile feedback they would, but she could tell when her shaft properly penetrated the vixen not by the way her shaft felt but by the way the fox threw her head back and moaned.

Instincts took over. Hyla pushed forward and was pleased that when she bottomed out the base of the dildo pressed back against her own sex and throbbed pleasantly. She pulled out and thrust again, grinding a bit when as deep as she could go. On the next thrust, there was a distinct slap as her hips met the vixen's. And soon the air was full of the sound repeating as she started to pound away. The pleasure Hyla got was just enough to spur her on to try and get more, to thrust harder, deeper, and faster.

The badger lowered her head slightly and looked down between their bodies, entranced by the sight of the phallus at her hips disappearing into the fox over and over again. Each thrust shifted her body slightly but it rocked Azair underneath her, making her breasts bounce. Hyla lowered her head and caught one breath in her mouth, her teeth lightly grazing the sensitive nipple. Her ears shot forward as a whimper escaped the vixen: each bounce was making her breast tug up and down against the sharp fangs. Hyla swapped to her lips to hold the breast still, but could not stop herself from running her tongue all over the exposed nipple, teasing and stimulating it as she thrust.

Then she plunged in deeper and harder. A part of her was trying continually to take a shaft that wasn't there deeper and deeper into herself. She hilted again and again into the vixen, seeking that deeper pleasure. Soon the desire was all consuming. Hyla closed her eyes and paid no attention to anything but the feel of her hips slamming into the vixen. The sound of the tableware clanging was lost. Azair's moaning was nothing to her. Her muscles strained. She pushed herself as hard as she could go.

The thing that finally shook her out of her stupor was the sound that Azair made as she climaxed. Her moaning rose in pitch until she was wailing in delight, her arms quaking in the badger's grasp.

Hyla glanced up to see Odoji, puffing on his pipe with a mixed look of annoyance and amusement on his face. Hyla noticed the table was conspicuously clean, and there was a pile of items hastily moved onto another surface nearby. "Feeling better?"

Hyla felt her sex clench on nothing, an ache of desire still running through her. But the honest answer was, "Yes." She felt like she had accomplished something sexual and that alone was enough to bring a sense of relief even if there was no orgasm to go with it. She let go of the vixen's arms, and immediately they encircled her neck, holding the smaller woman's body close to hers as she came down from her peak.

"Good. Then let us actually eat before the food gets cold. And then we return to work."

* * *

The process continued through the afternoon, with a break for bathroom and water, and then into the early evening. Hyla's need only grew and grew as time passed, and so it was with an immense sense of relief that as the day's activities wound to a conclusion, the machine beneath her sped up until she got her long-desired orgasm. A true need-releasing orgasm. It crashed into her, rocketing up her spine and making her go limp in her chains from the sheer intensity of it.

Azair helped her to the ground, where she lay on the now silent and inert graystone.

"Can you understand what I am saying?" Odoji asked in a clinical manner.

"Yes," Hyla said after spending a moment to pant and regain her breath. "But it... is still slow."

"Practice and repetition. That's all you need."

Hyla nodded in agreement.

"And you even understood those words. Excellent. Your diction has expanded significantly in a single day."

Hyla took longer to process these words, and "diction" still threw her. But she nodded again.

"Now we can have a proper conversation." Odoji sat back on a stool and lit his pipe. "So do you mind telling me who the fuck you are?"

The sharpness of the question brought Hyla out of her partial stupor, and Azair's fingers flinched where they had been cradling the badger's head. "What?"

"Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?" Odoji repeated, vulgarity and all.

The badger turned the words over and over in her head, trying to see if she had missed a hidden meaning to the phrase. When she could find none, she shrugged and said, "Hyla Brokenfang."

The ringtail rolled his eyes. "That's your name. But that doesn't tell me who you are."

"I am just a slave."

"No," Odoji said sharply, and jabbed in her direction with his pipe. "No, you are not. Gods do not pay for me to teach a language to just a slave. They certainly do not pay me this much." And he reached into the satchel and pulled out what had been inside.

Hyla knew what it was instantly.

All badgers knew the importance of graystone, after all.

What Odoji held in his hand was a chunk of pure graystone. Unlike the impure and semi-pure versions that Hyla had seen throughout the city, this was near translucent, more crystal than stone, and more powerful by an order of magnitude. A few pieces of pure graystone the size of the piece Odoji now held were worth as much as an entire mine of impure graystone. Wars had been fought over less. Badgers had lost their lives over less.

Including...

Including...

But no, Hyla could still not acknowledge that face in her memories. She refused to see it.

"This is--" Odoji began to explain.

"I know what it is." Hyla said and there was bitterness in her words.

Odoji puffed on his pipe once and looked at the graystone in his hand. "Totukepsan is the god of trades. He is a bargainer in all things, a tight-fisted old bastard. He knows how to get the highest price for his own goods and how to get the lowest for anything he wants to buy. And this--This!--is what he thinks teaching you to speak our language should cost. This is what he thinks is a bargain!" Odoji slammed the piece of graystone down onto the workbench behind him to emphasize his point.

"Why would he do that?" Azair asked, getting to her feet. Hyla followed, slower, her legs still shaky from the intense orgasm.

"Normally I would say that gods act as they desire and it is not for us mere mortals to understand," Odoji paused and smoke curled out from his nostrils, "but gods still have rules that they have to obey, rules that bind them tighter than laws bind us. Totukepsan is a god of trades. He does not make bad deals. He cannot make bad deals. And yet he paid in pure graystone to teach a slave to speak."

"Unless..." Azair paced back and forth a step or two, the fox's long brush twitching behind her. "Unless he got something else that we don't know about."

"Teaching her was all you paid for. I'm not doing anything else." The ringtail drummed his artificial fingers on his thigh.

Azair put her hands on her hips. "But would you have taught her if he hadn't paid this much?"

Odoji's brow wrinkled. He sucked in a lungful of air and let it out very slowly. "No, I probably wouldn't have. So he got a guarantee. Overpay, and I have to do it. Plus, he also piqued my curiosity. Damn." He snorted and ran his claws through the fur of his long tail in a nervous tic. "I hate being manipulated like that, even by a god. But that still doesn't answer the question of why."

Odoji and Azair both turned to look at the badger.

But the badger had been thinking. She was trying to remember everything the god had said when he had bargained with her for her to be a slave. Azair had said he made bargains with all his slaves. "All he wanted was for me to stay here," she said.

"What?"

"When Totukepsan bargained with me, his only condition was that I stay here. That's all he wanted. He never said why."

"Not even during his night with you?" Azair asked.

"What night?"

Azair laughed before she realized that Hyla was not joking. Then the fox looked affronted. "It's tradition. He always has a night with a slave alone after he buys them. So he can get to know you better. He hasn't with you?"

"I haven't spoken with him since the day I agreed to become his slave."

The gray fox crossed her arms over her chest.

Odoji sat back in his seat, the wood creaking slightly as he shifted position. "It sounds to me like the god is keeping far too many secrets these days."

Hyla, glad to find a kindred spirit in her distrust of the gods, agreed.

* * *

Night had fallen by the time Hyla and Azair returned to the House of Totukepsan. Hyla took the stairs leading up the hill two at a time, with Azair huffing as she tried to keep pace. The badger moved with single-focused intent, directly for the temple at the top of the hill. Guards stood at the door to the temple, but they were clearly there more for show and ceremony than for any practical purpose: their weapons looked like they hadn't been sharpened in a year or more. They simply nodded to Hyla as she stepped past them.

Inside the temple was a large but mostly empty chamber. Fires danced in braziers, casting unnatural looking shadows across the walls. The main chamber was surprisingly empty. A few of the ceremonial guards stood half at attention, a couple supplicants seeking the perfect bargain from the god of trades formed a queue, and there on a surprisingly humble throne that felt tiny within the great chamber was Totukepsan's channeler, Hyla's Master.

Hyla stepped towards him and found her way blocked by a lazily swung pike. "Make your way to the end of the line," the guard instructed, pointing to the supplicants.

"I will speak to him now," Hyla said, trying to keep the anger from her voice.

"It is all right," her Master called from his throne. "Let her approach."

The pike lifted out of her way and Hyla proceeded closer, followed at a distance by Azair. As she walked she kept a close watch on the coyote seated on the throne. Just as she had noticed on her first encounter with him, there was something strange in his eyes. His gaze kept sliding off of her. He looked at the spot on the ground just before her feet, rather than look at her. He had no trouble looking to anyone else, only she was different.

The anger boiled hotter than ever inside her.

"Hyla, it is good to see you again," the channeler said. "I hope you have been settling in--"

Whatever the coyote had been about to say next, he never got a chance to. Because when Hyla approached the throne of the god, she did not bow or kneel as the supplicants had done. Instead, she raised her arm, and backhanded the coyote hard enough to knock him sprawling off of his throne and into the air.

Next time: Hyla Brokenfang and the Eye of a God