FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Disclaimer: The following story contains explicit acts of sex between consenting, anthropomorphic adults. If you are too young to legally view such content, or if such content does not appeal to you, leave now.

* * *

The Eager Copilot

* * *

"It's a pity you lost your walking stick at the Arena," Cill grunted as she supported Sophan's weight, his arm draped over her shoulders while he limped along beside her.

"True," he said, suppressing another groan that his injured leg and rump tried to pull from him. "But I couldn't ask for a better crutch. My staff could never have offered me the kind of comfort you can." Sophan reached down across the raccoon-wolf's side, giving her breast a playful squeeze.

Rather than become offended, Cill responded with a quiet chuckle and trailed her fingers down the cheetah's back and past his tail, tracing the inner curve of his healthy buttock until she was teasing the warm skin at his tail's root. "Maybe you just weren't using it properly," she said with a grin.

"Careful," Sophan cautioned with a chuckle of his own. "The warning I gave the Seer still stands."

Cill rolled her white eyes at him. "Oh, just call him Alan. I think it's safe to say you know someone on a first name basis after they've had their finger up your butt."

He laughed aloud at that, though he still didn't know what to think about another male trying to breed him like a female, except that he didn't intend to let it happen again. "Alan, huh?" he said, steering his thoughts in a different direction while the female under his arm steered them both down one of the Seer's Tower's long hallways. "He doesn't sound quite so mysterious now that I know his name."

"Good," was all Cill said, and he laughed again. From what he'd seen of the two hybrid siblings, Cill was the one who usually went out of her way to put on a facade of mystery.

She led him to an empty doorway in the side of the hallway, and they stepped through to find Paps trying to climb an assortment of human-crafted oddities that were floating in the air in a stair-stepping pattern. The white ferret girl's tongue was poking out the side of her muzzle comically as she focused, her balance wavering as she stepped from some sort of bench to the back of a strange, wooden device with metal strings stretched between its narrow neck and one side of a thicker, curving body.

"Paps," Cill said, and the man made collection fell out of the air, the wooden contraption under the ferret's foot making a resounding noise that echoed around the little room loudly when it landed. Paps followed the floating items to the floor with a startled yelp, but landed nimbly on her feet half bent over, sidestepping rapidly until she regained her balance.

Cill shook her head with a sigh, looking down at the mess. "Alan will throw a fit if you've hurt his guitar."

"Sorry!" Paps apologized hurriedly. "I was just thinking that even if I can't make myself levitate, I might be able to walk across things while holding them in the air. It was actually working, until I lost my focus!" She dashed across the room to stand in front of Cill and Sophan, bouncing on her large toes excitedly. "I think if I practice enough, I might be able to sit on a chair or something and use it to fly! Wouldn't that be incredible? But that's not why you're here, is it? Is there something I can do for you?"

"Actually, I think there is," Cill said, smirking at the ferret amusedly. "I need you to round up all the refugees and bring them to the big chamber where Colt stays, the big black stallion. Do you think you can find everyone?"

"Sure, of course! Leave it to me!" Without another question, Paps darted past them and started sprinting down the hallway toward the stairwell, leaving them to follow at the sluggish pace Sophan was setting.

"I really wish you could tell me what this is all about," Sophan said while Cill guided him toward the stairs in Paps's wake. It wasn't the first time he'd let the wolf-raccoon know as much.

"Don't worry. You'll find out soon enough."

The two flights of stairs they had to descend was a trial, but with Cill's help, he was able to limp slowly down one stair at a time without putting much weight on his wounded leg.

The stallion's chamber was as vast as the vaults Alan and Cill used to store human artifacts, but completely empty save for the mostly shaved horse leaning against a dented support column at its center. He watched the two of them warily as they approached, almost suspiciously, his broad nostrils flaring as though he were scenting the air for danger. Sophan supposed he could forgive the horse for being nervous, since he and Cill were both carnivores, but he couldn't suppress a flicker of irritation. He'd come across few prey species in the western continent who didn't fear that he might eat them on a whim, and he thought that he, Cill, and Alan had all proven that wasn't the case when they'd helped the captives at the arena escape.

Cill nodded to the bent metal beam that Colt was leaning against. "Ileni?" she asked simply, and the horse nodded.

"The Seer followed her that way about an hour ago," he responded, pointing toward a doorway on the other side of the empty chamber with a black furred hand. Sophan's eyebrows lifted in surprise at the horse's youthful voice. As big as the other male was, the cheetah had assumed the horse was at least a few years older than himself, but that didn't sound like it was the case.

Cill just nodded and stood beside the big stallion, turning Sophan to face back the way they'd come.

"Is there something you need?" the horse asked nervously.

"Not yet," Cill told him. "I've sent Paps out to ask everyone to gather here."

"Oh," was all the stallion said. When Sophan looked up at the other male's face, he found a wide grin plastered over the horse's black muzzle.

"You seem to be in a particularly good mood," the cheetah remarked. "Having a good day, big guy?"

"You didn't hit me," the horse said quietly, looking away from the two carnivores. If his face hadn't been concealed by his sleek, black pelt, Sophan felt sure he would have seen the stallion blushing.

The cheetah frowned up at him. "Why in the world would we hit you?"

"I asked a question," Colt answered simply.

Sophan just shook his head in bewilderment. Could the predators in Chicago really be so bent on control that they abused their captives just for speaking? He had to dismiss the concept from his thoughts; it was too baffling to consider.

One by one, refugees started filing into the chamber from the stairwell entrance, looking around at each other and the two carnivores in their midst with various degrees of uneasy confusion. Sophan greeted each one that looked his way with a smile and a wave, but rarely received a wave in return. None of the refugees smiled back at him; few even held his gaze for more than a second or two before casting their eyes to the floor, or toward their friends. He wondered if they hadn't even been allowed to look their captors in the face when they'd been enslaved, or if they had some other reason for their shyness.

The only reason Sophan understood for someone averting their eyes from something was if they found that something unpleasant to look at, but knowing what he did about the refugees, he tried not to feel offended. Instead, he focused on appreciating the strengths of all of their individual forms, unabashedly looking each male and female up and down to show them that there was no harm in them showing their attraction to each other. Lead by example, after all; that was something his father had told him once. Strangely, they didn't seem to approve of his attempted politeness, many of the herbivores darting him uncomfortable scowls when they caught him staring. He supposed he just needed to try harder.

Whether his manners were reciprocated or not, Sophan couldn't help but appreciate so many attractive people gathering in one place. They all looked rather bizarre with their shaved bodies, but in an exotic, enticing way, especially when he remembered that the ancient humans he'd spent so long searching for looked much the same as the bare-skinned parts of the refugees' bodies. As the crowd grew, their combined scent became ever more potent, as well, and Sophan could both see and smell that he wasn't the only one the aroma was affecting. Almost every male in the large room was visibly aroused to some extent; the cheetah would have been at full mast himself, if Cill hadn't so recently helped him find release. By their jittery behavior and the way they all tried to gather themselves into groups according to gender, the refugees all seemed very pent up, and either unable or unwilling to turn to each other for pleasure.

The cheetah glanced down at Cill's face in sudden, dawning realization. That must have been why she and Alan were arranging that gathering. They were going to teach the refugees that there was nothing wrong with having sex with each other. Looking around at the few dozen fidgety males and females, Sophan couldn't help but grin in gleeful anticipation. Injured or not, he was glad Cill hadn't let him miss out on witnessing such a lesson.

Thinking to show initiative and help out before anyone needed to ask, he lowered his hand down past Cill's shoulder where his arm was draped behind her neck and gave her breast a playful squeeze, but she only slapped his paw away and gave him an admonishing whisper: "Not now, Sophan."

He frowned down at her face, perplexed, but pulled his fingers away from her soft chest as he was told. She and Alan must have planned to break the refugees in to the concept easily, he decided, and when he glanced around the large room at the faces turned in his direction, he realized that was probably good thinking on their part. Most of the herbivores were giving him grimaces of derision and disgust at the sight of his familiarity with the raccoon-wolf's body.

The flow of refugees eventually tapered to a stop, and Paps followed the last stragglers into the chamber, bouncing on her toes energetically. At least the ferret girl wasn't making any of the other anthros fly around the room in her enthusiasm. Sophan wondered if she could do that, or if she could only manipulate inanimate objects.

They all waited quietly, though some feet began tapping impatiently after a few minutes had passed without more than a few scattered murmurs being spoken throughout the chamber. There was enough empty space in the room that the commingling musk didn't overpower Sophan's senses, but it was definitely growing stronger the longer they waited. Many males were becoming fully erect, and the females, having gathered in the chamber's other half, were pointedly looking away from their aroused counterparts. They might not have shown it as visibly as the males, but there was every bit as much of aroused, female musk in the room as there was male.

"Are we just waiting for Alan and Ileni?" Sophan asked the female under his arm, and she nodded without looking up at his face, saying nothing.

A few more minutes passed before a female squirrel called out, "Did you bring us here for a reason, or did you just want to make us smell each other?" A number of other refugees echoed her impatience.

"Once the Seer arrives, we'll begin," Cill told them, raising her voice to be heard. Sophan winced at the volume she was able to coax out of her vocal chords without actually shouting. "Believe me, what we have to say will be worth the wait."

The cheetah heard several mutters of, "It had better be," or the like, but no one raised more complaint than that. One chipmunk on the males' side of the chamber looked like he was trying to cause some sort of disruption, but the other males were all shushing him irritably. Sophan raised an eyebrow at the little male in recognition. That was the chipmunk who had stabbed him in the rump at the arena. The chipmunk caught Sophan looking in his direction and flashed the cheetah a toothy grin, but it didn't seem at all friendly to Sophan.

A moment later, Alan and Ileni appeared through the doorway from the building's main stairwell, the shaved rabbit under the winged fox's arm. Ileni stepped away from the Seer when every eye in the room turned and fastened onto her, swallowing uncomfortably as her gaze darted around the chamber and tried to meet the stares of everyone watching her. She hadn't been quick enough to keep everyone from noticing her comfort at having Alan's arm around her shoulders, though, and Sophan's eyes widened when he realized what the rabbit's bashful smile meant.

She and Alan had had sex!

Shifting his astonished stare to the Seer, Sophan looked the smaller male up and down appraisingly. Ileni had accused Sophan of being too small when she'd abandoned him earlier that day, leaving him at full mast and halfway to an orgasm, but without being narcissistic, the cheetah didn't think what was bobbing between Alan's thighs could be larger than his own endowment, not unless the winged fox's sheath was far more stretchy than it appeared. Alan's masculinity was hefty enough for the male's size, but if size was what Ileni had been after, Sophan couldn't imagine why she'd traded him for the fox.

The refugees all grew silent as Ileni and the Seer walked down the isle made between the separated genders, watching the rabbit reverently. Those males who hadn't already been fully aroused soon were, and many of them turned away from Ileni or covered their crotches modestly with their paws. There may have been females among the throng as attractive physically as the small rabbit, but Sophan imagined no one present was able to forget what they'd seen at the arena. The cheetah hadn't witnessed Ileni's violent rape, but he'd seen the aftermath, when she'd fought off an entire army of armed hunters, showing supernatural strength and agility that any feline would have had to train their entire life to hope to equal, and the memory was more than enough to make his own loins stir.

When they reached Sophan and Cill, the fox and rabbit turned to face the gathered refugees, Ileni ignoring Sophan's polite wave and positioning herself on the other side of Cill and Alan. The stallion that had been standing near the damaged support column at their backs had moved halfway between the four of them and the males' half of the chamber.

"I'm sure you're all wondering why we've called this meeting," Alan said without any further introduction, and Sophan grinned eagerly. "I won't waste any time," the fox told them. "Two days from now, I intend to rescue more of the captives being held by the predators in the ruins."

Having been watching the crowd for everyone's reactions, Sophan whipped his head around toward the fox in surprise while a few cheers arose from the refugees' anxious murmurs. They weren't all going to have sex, then?

"The reason I'm telling you this," Alan went on, "is because I don't believe I can rescue anyone on my own. I hold to what I told you all when I brought you here: you're all free to leave, if you want to, and make whatever you choose to of your lives. Also, just as I won't keep you here, I won't require you to help me if you just want to stay in peace. The predators have destructive weapons that we can't hope to rival, and that my mist can't shield us from, and there's a good chance that anyone who comes with me won't be coming back, even if we were all to strike at once. I don't need to tell you how many of the predators there are."

"With Ileni on our side, we can drive the hunters out of the ruins entirely!" a female deer shouted, and the squirrel who had spoken up earlier said, "That ferret girl's quite a weapon to have on our side, too," but Alan shook his head somberly.

Cill put a hand on her brother's shoulder and gave the doe an expressionless stare, which the deer took a step away from subconsciously. Sophan knew how unsettling the raccoon-wolf's white eyes could be to someone who wasn't used to them. "Even if Ileni was to join you," Cill said, "you couldn't defeat all of the predators in one day. There are too few of you."

"If you want to make a goal of claiming the ruins, we'll need more numbers, no matter who we have helping us," Alan put in. "Which is why freeing more captives is such a high priority."

"There's no greater priority than rescuing our friends," a male rabbit said, stepping forward from their cluster and frowning grimly at Alan and Cill. "I don't care if it's to wage war against the carnivores or not, we have to get everyone else away from them before they start the arena matches up again."

Alan looked at the rabbit with a smile tugging at the corners of his muzzle, and after a moment, the rabbit stepped back with his ears twitching back against his head in embarrassment. Sophan didn't understand what that exchange had been about, but the winged fox continued before he could give it much thought. "On that matter, we're agreed," the Seer said. "But you do need to know something before committing yourself to this. I'm not going to let Paps help us."

"What?" Paps exclaimed, trotting forward from where she'd been fidgeting among the female refugees. "Why not? I want to help, too!"

"I know, Paps," Alan said in a quieter tone, directly to the distraught ferret. "But we shouldn't have asked someone as young as you to fight in a battle in the first place. This is going to be too dangerous."

"Is this about smackin' Ileni in the head?" Paps demanded, then turned to Ileni plaintively. "If it is, I'm really sorry about it, but I promise I won't make that kind of mistake again. I've been practicing all sorts of different ways to make stuff move, and I really think I can help out. I can just pick up walls and block those weird pipes' attacks, if you don't want to risk me hitting the wrong person again."

"It's not Ileni's call to make," Cill told the ferret, "because Ileni won't be fighting, either."

"I won't?" Ileni asked, looking at the wolf-raccoon as if she was seeing the other female for the first time, and the gathered refugees erupted in an outpouring of protests and complaints.

"No," Cill said calmly to the rabbit, ignoring everyone's distress. "At least, not in the first rescue mission. I have something elsewhere that I need your help with while Alan handles things here in Chicago."

"What's more important than freeing everyone still held captive?" Ileni demanded, crossing her arms beneath her breasts defiantly, and many refugees echoed the sentiment. Ileni's position was immensely attractive, but Sophan tried not to get too caught up on the rabbit's physical allure until he figured out what all was going on.

"Unfinished business out west," Cill told her, still keeping her voice quiet enough that only the most sensitive ears in the crowd would be able to pick it up above the commotion. "Something I intended to accomplished when I met up with you and Sophan. It should only take a few days."

"What right have you to tell Ileni what she can or can't do?" one of the males asked loudly, his voice rising above the others', and the rest of the refugees settled into a tense silence, nodding their support. "Is she somehow less free than the rest of us?"

"Of course not," Cill responded, raising her voice again so everyone could hear, but by looking out of the corner of her eye at the rabbit, she made it clear to whom her words were most intended. "It is completely her choice whether to stay and help you in your next battle, or join up with you again after seeing what I have to show her. She is also free to choose to leave entirely, just as you all are, and let us all walk our paths without her. Never forget that. All I can promise is that what awaits in the west is of personal significance to her, and would help give her a great deal of closure." That last bit was emphasized more than the rest, and Cill ended by returning her blank gaze directly to Ileni.

The rabbit eyed Cill uncertainly for a long moment while everyone waited in silent anticipation for her decision. "The last time I trusted you, I ended up getting shaved and . . . and everything else," she said.

Rather than say anything in her defense, the raccoon-wolf simply said, "Yes. You did."

Ileni frowned at the raccoon-wolf unhappily for a long moment, and the chamber was so quiet, it seemed everyone else was holding their breath. Finally, she faced the refugees and said, "I'll come back as soon as I've helped Cill."

An outcry arose again, and someone shouted, "But we can't do it without Ileni! We won't survive!" His voice carried above the rest, and Alan stepped forward to address that protest specifically, as though he had been waiting for it.

"That's just one more reason that she shouldn't help us, at least for this first battle." Though they clearly weren't happy about it, the refugees calmed enough that the fox's words could be heard, though they never stopped muttering their dissatisfaction completely. "As long as you believe you need Ileni to save you, you have a chain around her neck. Most of you haven't yet made the time to get to know her enough to realize just how far she is willing to go to help, so perhaps you haven't figured out that all your cries of 'Help us!' are one step away from asking her to die for you, and if you're relying solely on her strength to win your battles for you rather than your own abilities, that's exactly what will eventually happen.

"At the same time, the chain is around all of your necks, too," Alan went on before anyone had a chance to argue. "If Ileni was anyone other than who she is, she could make any number of demands as payment for her help. . . ."

"And in some opinions, should," Sophan heard Cill murmur under her breath, but no one else noticed.

" . . . She could turn you into slaves," the fox went on, "just as the predators did, by leashing you with your own need. Think of what payment you'd be willing to give to get your friends away from their captors. The greater your selflessness, the more you would suffer, if Ileni was the type of person to take advantage of your idolization."

The refugees were looking more abashed with every sentence, but one of the males stepped away from the crowd to stand beside the Seer. It was the rabbit that the fox had smiled at earlier. "Alan's right," the male rabbit told his comrades. "We're just offering ourselves as victims again to anyone we ask to lead us who would be willing to exploit us. Just think of how lucky we are that Alan and Cill have turned out to be so different than all the other carnivores we've all dealt with. Whatever he claims, this is Alan's tower, his home, and he has all the knowledge of the ancient humans on his side. Whether we want to admit it or not, we're at his mercy, and have been ever since the arena. The only reason we're free now and not still captives is because of his good nature."

"Or because of our numbers," a female squirrel pointed out, and many glowering heads nodded in agreement. Sophan recognized the squirrel as the impatient female who had been so unhappy with Cill for gathering them all together. "Who's to say the real reason the Seer's being so helpful isn't just because there are so many more of us than him?"

The male rabbit stared at the squirrel girl, aghast. "If that was the case, why did he come to the arena in the first place to help us all escape?" he demanded angrily.

"That's easy. He wanted Ileni. He's already admitted that he's collecting people with special powers."

Alan lifted an eyebrow toward his lapine defender. "She has a point, Aubur," he told the rabbit.

Aubur wheeled on the fox incredulously. "But it's not true!"

"You can say that, because you've taken the time to get to know me better than most here, but as far as everyone else goes, my intentions have to be suspect. For all you know, I could just be using you to rescue the others because I believe one of them has dormant abilities that will manifest, like Ileni's have."

"That's not the case, though, is it?" the rabbit asked with an uncertain frown.

"No." Alan shook his head with an amused smirk. "But how can you be certain? Just because I told you so?"

"Words have no power," Ileni muttered, too quietly for anyone save those closest to her to hear, and when Sophan glanced at her, he found her staring at him for some reason.

"Fortunately," Alan said, addressing the crowd once more, "I'm not asking you to trust me. You're all welcome to stage your own rescue attempts without me, if you'd prefer, but if I were in your position, I'd take every advantage that's offered."

The refugees settled down to some extent, then, still unhappy with the situation, but resigned to it. Sophan took the opportunity to turn to Cill. "So," he asked, "when do we leave?"

"We?" she repeated, though she didn't seem at all surprised.

"Of course," the cheetah said with a nod. "If Ileni's heading west with you, I'm coming, too."

Perhaps it would have been wiser to wait until they were somewhere more private before he told Cill that, because as soon as the words left his muzzle, every refugee in the room was suddenly clamoring loudly again, insisting that they would come along, as well. Cill grimaced, though, and was shaking her head at them almost before they'd begun making their assertions. "Sophan can join Ileni and me, but we won't be able to take all of you."

"Why not?" someone demanded, sounding offended. "What gives the cheetah more right to accompany Ileni than the rest of us?"

Another refugee asked, "And if we're free to go where we please, why shouldn't it be with Ileni?"

"The cheetah asked first," Cill told them simply, addressing the first protest. "You are free to travel west if you like, but the three of us will be traveling in one of the human relics, and it can only seat four. And if it makes a difference to you, Sophan will be accompanying me, not Ileni. I'll leave who else joins us up to her, if she wants more company, or we can go with only the three of us." The raccoon-wolf turned to Ileni, then, giving the rabbit an apologetic smile. "Sorry for putting you on the spot like this. If there's anyone else you'd like to bring along, it's up to you. Anyone except Paps, that is. We'll be walking into as much danger as everyone who stays to fight the predators."

"We will?" Sophan asked, surprised, at the same time as the young ferret girl exclaimed, "Oh, come on! You're not going to let me do anything except stay in the tower?"

Shrugging helplessly, Ileni ignored them both and looked over the refugees' faces. Everyone had grown quiet, once again waiting anxiously for Ileni's decision. She sighed, turning to the male rabbit with them. "Do you want to come with us?" she asked him.

For a moment he hesitated, surprised. "I . . . I will if you ask me to, Ileni," he said slowly, "but I'd really like to stay and help free more captives. Sorry. . . ."

"No, no, that's fine," Ileni said quickly, but rubbed at the back of one of her long ears indecisively, chewing on her lower lip. "I guess . . . Delver, then."

"Really?" someone said from the males' half of the room, and a young stag stepped out from the crowd, making his way slowly toward the small cluster of anthros next to the dented support column, his ears flicking as he glanced at all of the people staring at him. "I mean, thank you, Ileni, but are you sure?" Sophan recognized him, then, as the young buck who had been following around the zebra that had introduced himself to Sophan earlier that day. "After . . . after what I did . . . ?"

Ileni looked at him for a long moment, still chewing her lip, but eventually nodded.

"It's settled, then," Cill said. "There's no need to waste any time. I've already stocked the relic with supplies, so unless you three want to bring anything in specific, we can go ahead and be on our way." Ileni and Delver, the stag, shrugged and shook their heads, and Sophan did the same. He could find a new staff once they arrived wherever they were going, and until then was more than happy to use the wolf-raccoon's voluptuous body as a crutch. Or Ileni's, for that matter, if he could convince the rabbit to let him. "I'll leave the rest to you, then, Alan. Try not to be too reckless."

The fox laughed at Cill and gave her a parting hug. "I won't even try to ask the same of you. Just try to get out of your own recklessness unscathed."

* * *

A short while later, they were back in Cill's flying metal egg, soaring through the sky toward the setting sun.

Sophan was enjoying himself rather less on this second voyage than he had when they'd flown to Chicago several days earlier. There was no position he could sit in that didn't hurt his injured rump. Seated on the soft bench behind the two females and to the left of Delver the deer, Sophan had tried crouching on all fours and peering out his window as he had the first time he'd been in the flying human relic, but hearing a snicker from the front passenger seat, he craned his neck to look behind him and found Ileni peeking over the back of her seat and using her fingers against her head to imitate Delver poking the cheetah's butt with his antlers. The young stag had a paw over his muzzle, trying to cover up his laughter, and when the two of them noticed Sophan looking, they both erupted into fits of giggles. Indignant, the cheetah turned around and sat uncomfortably, trying to hold most of his weight with his hands beside his hips.

At least Ileni was in high spirits, he told himself. He hadn't seen her laugh like that once in the few days that he'd known her, and he decided to be happy for her, even if her mirth was at his expense.

"Just where is it we're going, anyway?" he asked several minutes into the flight, after they'd flown up to a safe altitude and Cill seemed to need to devote less attention to the knobs and levers and switches in front of her.

"West," was her blunt response. "I'll tell you more once we get there."

He tried to coax more information out of the raccoon-wolf, but that was all he was able to find out. Delver and Ileni looked curious, too, but were apparently content to let Sophan to all the information fishing for them. Not wanting to pester Cill, he turned his attention to the window beside him, but they were flying in the middle of the night; even when he pressed his wet nose against the cool glass, he could see nothing save the wispy cotton of occasional, moonlit clouds.

Sophan took a deep, restless breath, wondering if the flight west would take as long as the one that had carried them to Chicago. He hoped not. There was no ventilation in the flying egg, and every moment the four of them stayed cooped up in its confines, their combined musk grew harder to ignore. Delver had his shaved leg propped up on the cushioned bench to hide his sheath from Sophan's view, which, of course, only made the cheetah imagine exactly what the young stag was covering. The deer's aroma seemed more potent than both of the females' combined scents, but maybe that was just because Sophan was sitting right next to him. Either way, the feline's sheath had plumped out considerably, and a hint of red was peeking out of its opening. He knew he would have to masturbate before too long, but didn't look forward to moving his weight off his hands and onto his bottom to do so.

"So," he said, trying to distract himself, "will you teach us to fly this thing, Cill?" Aroused or not, he really was curious about the human relic. How could he not be? He'd spent years searching for a functioning ancient artifact while Cill had been flying around in one at her leisure.

"There is a great deal for you to learn before I would ever let you into the pilot's seat," the raccoon-wolf answered. "Far more than I could teach you in the time it will take us to reach our destination. I can show you what a few of the instruments are for, though, if you like."

Ileni shifted in her seat. "Please do," the rabbit said enthusiastically. Evidently she wanted to distract herself from the cloying musk as much as Sophan did, which he supposed shouldn't have surprised him.

"Well, for starters, this is the steering column," Cill said, placing her hands on the semi-circular handles directly in front of her. She proceeded to show them a number of the devices on the dashboard, giving them a demonstration of how each functioned, and all three passengers listened attentively, reacting with either excitement or uneasiness when she used the instruments to make the relic sway from side to side in the air, or dip or ascend swiftly. Sophan was amazed at the complexity of it all, but he found himself increasingly distracted by Ileni's and Delver's aromas. He could smell Cill, as well, but even though she wasn't immune to the effects of the thickening musk in the flying relic, her scent wasn't nearly as potent as the two herbivores'.

Eventually, Cill stopped explaining how to tell how high the flying egg was above the ground when it became clear that no one was paying much attention any more. When Sophan glanced to his right, he couldn't help but notice the edge of Delver's long, slender penis peeking from the other side of the stag's leg. Standing at full attention, it was too large for the deer to hide completely any more.

Delver noticed Sophan looking his way and turned his head to stare intently out his window, his ears flicking embarrassedly on top of his cervine head. "Does this thing have to vibrate so much?" he muttered to himself, and in the front passenger seat, Ileni squirmed uncomfortably, as if in agreement.

Sophan looked down at his own endowment, every bit as aroused as the stag appeared to be, and sighed. The others appeared content to wait out the relic's ride in awkward misery. He wondered how they would try to pretend they weren't aroused once the relic landed.

Lifting his hands off the seat cushion and settling his weight gingerly back on his injured bottom, the cheetah threw his hands together in a loud clap, almost laughing at the way Ileni and Delver nearly jumped out of their skins. Even Cill appeared taken by surprise, but Sophan began talking before anyone could reprimand him. "So, who wants to have sex?" he asked, grinning.

"What?" Delver exclaimed next to him incredulously, and in front of the males Cill shook her head with a quiet laugh while Ileni muttered something under her breath.

Sophan just shrugged. "I know I want to have sex. It smells like Ileni wants to have sex, and you sure look like you want to have sex, buck." The stag was staring at him with openmouthed astonishment, so Sophan tilted his head and asked, "Is something wrong, or are you offering me your muzzle?"

Delver closed his mouth so quickly, Sophan could hear the other male's teeth click together. "No, cheetah, I definitely do not want to have sex," he grumbled, looking out his window again and shifting his body so that his back was between Sophan and his erection. The new position only offered the cheetah a view of the upper fringes of the muscles below Delver's tail, though.

"Are you sure?" Sophan asked, trying not to lick his chops at the sight of the deer's rump, seated though it was. "Being packed together like this has us all smelling like we're in heat." He leaned closer to the deer, but Delver pressed himself as much against the window on his other side as he could when he felt Sophan's breath on the back of his neck. Nonetheless, the cheetah whispered into the stag's ear, "Ileni might let us both take her at once, if we ask really nicely."

"I will not!" Ileni exclaimed, and Sophan sat back on his side of the cushioned bench with a grimace, as much at the twinge of discomfort from his rump as at the rabbit's unexpectedly sharp hearing.

"Well, if that's not to your liking," he said, knowing the rabbit still had her reservations about him, "you and Delver can go at it, and I can take buck boy from behind."

"Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?" Delver snapped at him angrily, and Cill glanced back at him from around her pilot's seat.

"Sophan," Cill said sternly, as though reprimanding a cub, "don't ask Delver to do something you wouldn't be willing to do yourself."

The cheetah gave another casual shrug. "Why not? Just because I'm not fond of something doesn't mean he wouldn't be, either."

"And why is that?" the young stag demanded. "Just because I don't eat meat, you expect me to enjoy being submissive?"

"Of course not," Sophan told the deer, and this time he felt like he was the one addressing a child. "I don't expect or assume anything about you. That's why I asked; you could easily enjoy taking other males up your tail end, even if I don't. You don't have to be opposed to it just because I am."

Sophan didn't think his reasoning could be much more logical than that, but none of the others seemed any readier to mate with him than before. They didn't argue any further, but it was clear he'd have to relieve his tension on his own. "Fine, fine," he said, trying not to sound as dejected as he felt. "That's why we have paws, I guess." He reached down with both hands to roll his balls around in their sack and wrap his fingers around his shaft, but Cill made an exasperated noise and tapped a few buttons on the relic's dashboard before clambering around between the front seats and crouching in front of him.

"Leave you to your own devices, and you'll spray yourself all over the upholstery," she muttered wryly.

Sophan might not have known what "upholstery" was, but he didn't argue when the raccoon-wolf swatted his paws away and replaced them with her own, lowering her muzzle to lap at his tip.

"Ohh, thanks, Cill," he moaned when her soft paws and wet tongue began working on him. Her warm breath alone would have been enough to keep his member throbbing. "That feels amazing." Then, remembering the promise he'd made to Alan, he put his hands on her shoulders and hastily asked, "I do have your permission to be doing this, right?"

Cill snorted a laugh against his pubic fur before lifting her face away from his crotch. "Yes, Sophan," she said with a smirk. "You have my permission to let me give you a blow job."

"But no one's steering the relic," Ileni protested, staring pointedly at the empty pilot's seat rather than at Cill's crouching form.

The wolf-raccoon pulled away from Sophan again after a long, single lick, and he shivered when the air in the vehicle washed around the soaked underside of his shaft. "Not to worry, Ileni," Cill assured the rabbit. "It's set on autopilot, and will keep taking us straight to the west. We won't have to worry about mountains or trees at our altitude for another hour yet, at the least. Although. . . ." she looked back past her hindquarters, where her legs and tail were splayed to either side and above a lever set in the floor between the front seats. "I really should move all the way back to make sure I don't kick anything."

Following her own advice, she wriggled sinuously back between the seats until she was sitting on Sophan's right, Delver pressing himself hard against the wall and window next to him to avoid contact with Cill. She looked at the stag, tilting her head thoughtfully. "I hope you don't mind, Delver," she said, then moved onto her knees between the deer's shins and the back of Ileni's seat, facing Sophan. "You really are more trouble than you're worth, you know that, cat?"

Sophan just grinned down at her when she reached forward for his member again. "I can live with that, as long as you keep going through the trouble anyway."

Resting her chin on his thigh, her chuckle resonated through his fur and flesh. Then her tongue was out again and lapping at the side of his base, ruffling the pale fur at the top of his sheath and tickling the lowest inches of his penis. Sophan grasped the back of Cill's head, though only to scratch her between her ears encouragingly.

Beside him, Delver was now cramming himself against the back of their cushioned bench as hard as he could, closing his eyes to block out the sight of the naked female whose side was pressing against his knees. Sophan just shook his head, paying only enough attention to the deer to be amused. Why in the world would anyone prefer to close their eyes rather than look at Cill's beautiful form? Maybe Delver just preferred males, but if that was the case, why in the world would he close his eyes rather than look at Sophan? The cheetah knew he was attractive enough; plenty of prey back in Africa had assured him of it.

When one of Cill's fingers hooked around his phallus and tugged it into her welcoming muzzle, though, Sophan forgot all about the young buck's discomfort. He moaned in delight as the female's paw pads rubbed through his abdomen's pelt, teasing the sleek fur around his navel while her tongue danced around the side and bottom of his shaft, pulling back to press against his mushroom shaped head on occasion before her maw engulfed him again. He felt his tip nudge the roof of her mouth and the back of her throat more than once, but she never took him beyond that. With her other hand wrapping itself around his base just above his sheath, he decided he could be content with what Cill was already offering.

Growing more enthusiastic, Cill leaned against the cheetah more forcefully, raising her haunches to gain leverage as her hand on his belly moved up his front and pressed hard against his pectoral, scratching at the muscle beneath his spotted fur. That, evidently, was all Delver could take. As soon as the female's bottom was lifted into clear view, he shuddered, even though his eyes were closed. It must have been Cill's aroma, Sophan decided, hitting the buck like a hammer when she lifted her haunches off of her heels. Delver opened his eyes in shock, blinked at Cill's hip and upraised, ringed tail, and began swallowing convulsively. "I . . . I'm sorry," the buck stammered in a gasp, and actually began crawling over the raccoon-wolf's back toward the empty pilot's chair.

Cill let out a muffled grunt as the stag's weight pushed down against her back, and her teeth scraped across Sophan's hypersensitive flesh as she pulled her face away from his crotch, making him hiss in nervous discomfort. "Not there, Delver," she panted after licking a dollop of pre from her lower lip, looking up at the male who still had one knee digging into her spine. "I trust you not to touch anything, but you could always hit a switch by accident. There are control buttons in the seat, as well. If you find it too uncomfortable back here, you'll have to sit with Ileni."

Delver looked at the rabbit hidden from Sophan's sight in front of the passenger chair's high back, and the stag began gulping all over again. Nonetheless, he hauled himself around the side of the front passenger seat and settled himself next to Ileni, who must have slid against her own window in order to give the male room.

"Well then," Cill said in a lust deepened voice, turning back to Sophan. She placed a hand on the left side of his neck and, without warning, tugged him down against the length of the back seat. The cheetah cringed at a sudden lance of pain in his buttock, and a lesser echo in his injured calf, but forgot all remnants of pain when the female rolled him onto his back and positioned herself above him, her face hovering over his bobbing erection while her thighs were parted around his face, one leg still lowered to the floor beside the seat. "This looks familiar," she murred, lowering her muzzle and bumping his tip lightly with her nose.

Sophan stared up at the female's gray furred crotch with wide eyes, knowing that if anyone could see his expression, he would look nothing so much as a kitten with his favorite toy dangled over his head. And really, that was exactly what he was.

"Ohh, thank you, Delver," he murmured, just before grasping Cill's lush rump with both hands and pulling her down on top of him, burying his muzzle in her folds and sampling her feminine musk from its source.

* * *

Ileni was trying furiously to keep her hands planted on the seat cushion beside her hips while Cill pleasured Sophan behind her, but the rabbit's paws seemed to have minds of their own. Every time she began looking out the relic's windshield through the midnight blue sky, using the stars to distract herself, she found the fingers of one of her traitorous paws wedging themselves between her firmly closed thighs, rubbing at her shaved mound. The pad of her right hand's middle finger was just wiggling itself between her slit's folds when she heard Delver crawling between the front seats to her left.

After Cill told the stag that he would have to sit with Ileni instead of in the pilot's seat, Delver looked the rabbit straight in the eyes and started swallowing as if something was caught in his throat. He was struggling to keep his eyes on Ileni's face, she thought. She offered the big male a nervous smile and scooted as far to the right on her seat as she was able, sliding her right hand under her bottom and hoping that he hadn't noticed the moisture glistening on her middle finger.

When the buck crawled the rest of the way between the seats, swinging his hooves forward to the floorboards next to Ileni's big rabbit feet, she couldn't help but stare at his fully unsheathed erection. Twice she had seen Delver climax, both in the same day, and she'd been the cause of it both times: first by being forced to press his member between their two torsos when he'd already been on the brink, and then by taking the length of it down her throat. Neither time had she brought him to his orgasm willingly.

But then, neither time had he been willing, either. It had all been at the hands of Chicago's predators.

When he noticed what she was staring at, Delver lifted his right thigh to block the rabbit's view of his penis, and Ileni couldn't remember feeling so relieved that the crazy mouse at the arena had left the fur on the rabbit's face untouched. She was certain that her white ears were glowing, she was blushing so hard. What was wrong with her, staring so blatantly at the deer's erection?

Realizing that her left hand was once again creeping over the top of her thigh toward her crotch, Ileni hastily shifted it back down to the chair cushion beside her and sat on it along with her other paw, hoping that Delver didn't notice her knuckles grazing his hip, but knowing that he did. The front seat had seemed large before, but it wasn't intended to hold two people. As it was, the big stag only had one buttock propped on the edge of the seat, his left half dangling over the chair's edge in a position that couldn't be comfortable so that he wouldn't rub up against Ileni.

The rabbit stared at the darkness past her side window and tried to breathe as shallowly as possible. This close, Delver's scent was overwhelming, though not at all unpleasant. She thought he must have bathed shortly before they left; she could almost smell the subtle, flowery aroma of the soap from the Seer's Tower's washroom beneath the stag's own masculine scent. The combination was arousing enough to bring a dampness between her legs without her even needing to touch herself, and the relic's incessant vibrations only mad her wetter. Gritting her teeth, Ileni clenched her rump to prop her vagina off the seat cushion, feeling her buttocks harden against the backs of her hands. It didn't help much.

Delver was constantly shifting, obviously having trouble keeping himself from touching his own arousal, too, while the groans and throaty laughter of an enthusiastic copulation came from behind them. Eventually, having no better place to put his paws, he lifted his arms and placed his hands behind his head, leaning back against the seat even though he was too far to one side to use the head rest.

The awkward posture only made Ileni notice what Delver was trying to avoid touching all the more, but worse, his lifted arms gave off a potent dose of that masculine, floral mixture, and the rabbit couldn't help but glance at the scent's source. The stag's armpits had been shaved along with most of the rest of his body, and somehow the sight and smell of them made Ileni want nothing more than to bury her muzzle in one and taste the clean sweat that she could see beading on his bare skin. The thought startled her so much that she almost banged her head on the relic's wall turning her head away from the buck so quickly, but once that mental image was in her head, it refused to leave.

A loud slurping sound came from behind them, shortly followed by a throaty guffaw of laughter from Sophan, as if he'd just been tickled. Then there was an audible shifting of bodies, a rustling of fur, and a gasp and a moan from the mating pair.

Ileni shook her head and glanced at Delver again. This was ridiculous. Even if the two of them were able to suppress their hormones long enough for the relic to land and for them to find trees or shrubs to masturbate behind, in privacy, they were going to be traveling together for days, and Ileni had little doubt the stag would become just as aroused after a little rest. She knew she would.

Tentatively, she reached over and touched the side of the buck's knee, and he jumped at the unexpected contact, almost falling off the left edge of the seat. Ileni cleared her throat when he looked down at her. "We could help each other," she said slowly, keeping her voice down and hoping the pair behind them wouldn't overhear. She didn't want Sophan to know what she was offering to Delver, though by the sounds of the cheetah's rhythmic grunting, she didn't need to worry about that.

Delver was vehemently shaking his head, though. "No! I can't ask you to do that, Ileni. Not after. . . ." He was unable to go on, but the rabbit certainly didn't need him to spell out what he was referring to. She would never forget that day.

"You were as much a victim then as I was," Ileni began, but the young stag only shook his head again.

"I didn't have to go along with it. If I'd have listened to you when you first told everyone to fight, my father and uncle. . . ." Once again, he couldn't repeat what would happen, as if saying it would make the terrible memories alive again. "And then, in the combatant's ring, I actually asked you to . . . to. . . ." He let that reminder fade, too.

He was staring at the vehicle's dashboard with a frustrated and self loathing frown until Ileni gathered her courage, reached up, and pulled his muzzle around to force him to look her in the eye. "This time," she said, "I'm the one who's asking." He tried to shake his head again, but she kept her fingers around his chin. "We don't have to if you don't want to, but if it's a matter of you thinking I'm not willing, you don't have to worry about that. I'm more than willing."

His frown only deepened, and in a bewildered voice, he asked, "Why?"

Ileni almost growled with her own frustration. "Because your musk is as strong as a dozen stags, thanks to it being trapped in the relic with us, and I can't even think straight when I can't smell anything except you. Because this stupid flying artifact vibrates so much that I don't even need to touch myself to get worked up. But mostly because there's nothing at all wrong with sex." She remembered the time she'd spent with Alan before they'd left the tower, and had to fight off another blush. It was a losing battle; she was blushing just from what she was saying without memories of the winged fox needing to push her blood up to her face. "Not when both sides want it as much as the other. We've been letting a world full of rapists scare us away from something beautiful."

When Delver said nothing and made no move except a slight tremble that passed through his body, she let go of his chin, only to grab his wrist where it still hovered above her head and guide his hand down to her breast, setting his palm's pad right over her nipple.

Delver jerked his wrist out of her grasp and cradled it against his chest with his other arm as though he'd been burned, almost jumping out of the chair in his surprise.

Ileni leaned against the wall and window beside her when the stag looked away from her with another shudder, trying not to feel dejected. Maybe she'd misread him. Maybe he wasn't as afraid of sex itself as he was of her. He wouldn't have been the only one from the arena who thought her unnatural strength made her different from everyone else in more ways than the physical. He wouldn't have been the only one to treat her either like she was a goddess, or a monster.

"Do you. . . ." the stag murmured, almost too quietly for Ileni to understand him with the repetitive thuds of fur covered flesh slapping against each other behind them. "Do you really want to?"

"Yes, Delver," Ileni told him confidently, not letting any doubt be heard in her voice, even though she still wasn't fully comfortable with what she was proposing. Not with two other people sharing such tight confines with them. "I really want to."

The stag glanced at her from the corner of his eye without turning his head to face her. "Okay, I guess."

Still, he sat motionless, rigid on the edge of the seat, and refused to look at her. He was waiting for her to initiate something, Ileni decided.

Timidly, she scooted back across the chair until her hip lightly bumped into the stag's, her shoulder grazing his ribs, and she moved her left leg so that their skin touched along the outsides of their thighs. That small amount of contact was enough to make Delver go rigid, and when Ileni looked up at his face, he was staring straight ahead with a wide eyed, panicked expression. She sighed, but made herself reach down and rub his muscular thigh anyway. He would stop her if she went too fast, or if she did something he didn't like. At least, she hoped he would.

She had to pause, though, at the prickly feel of his skin, until she realized that the roughness she felt was his pelt beginning to grow back. Ileni had noticed that same prickliness at certain places on her own body - under her armpits, between her breasts, and between her navel and her groin - but the roughness seemed to be all over the stag already. When she looked closely, she could see the tips of little white and brown hairs pushing through the skin on the side of his torso. As her eyes traced their way up his body, she found the emerging pelt to be slightly thicker under his arms.

And now she was looking straight at the buck's armpit, hovering a few scant inches above her face while Delver held his arm awkwardly above her, carefully avoiding touching even her ears. Ileni inhaled deeply, and felt like the male's musk filled her. The rabbit's eyes closed, and they didn't open again until she found herself burying her muzzle in the stag's armpit, making the big male gasp in surprise.

The feeling of his sweaty, prickly skin against her nose came as somewhat of a shock to Ileni, too. She hadn't realized she'd been leaning into the source of Delver's musk.

Well, one of the sources.

Rubbing the side of her face against his underarm while the stag sat as still as a statue, she looked down at his glistening red member and felt herself squirm against him in anticipation. He was of a similar length as Sophan, but a bit more slender; Ileni remembered exactly how big Delver had felt when she'd been forced to take him down her throat at the arena. This time, though, she was looking forward to having his slick erection inside her.

She was just about to reach down and caress the cervine penis when she realized just how tense Delver's thigh was against her own. It wasn't from nerves this time. The more she pressed herself against his side, the more he shifted away from her, and he was squatting almost completely off of the passenger seat, holding himself upright awkwardly by only his hooves on the relic's floor and his shoulder against the chair.

Ileni scooted away from him again and sighed. This was never going to work if Delver stayed afraid to touch her. "Delver, sit down," she told him, and remarkably, he did, though he was still only half on the seat. The rabbit shook her head and got to her feet, standing hunched over with the relic's dashboard keeping her from standing fully upright, her ears folding back against her head to keep from hitting the slanted windshield. "In the middle of the chair, Delver." When he didn't move to obey this time, she added, "Please."

Gulping audibly, the stag slid slowly into the chair's center, pressing himself hard back into the cushion so that he still wouldn't touch her. Shaking her head, Ileni strafed across the small space between the buck and the dashboard, and when the backs of her thighs brushed against his knees, he spread his legs to end the contact. The rabbit kept her legs together; the position would work well enough.

Ileni could have plunged down and taken the stag's erection then and there, but she wanted Delver to enjoy the act, and more importantly, to stop being so stubbornly terrified of her. There were two parts of her body that had never failed to draw males' attention in the past, but Delver had already recoiled from her breast.

Balancing carefully so that she wouldn't fall on top of the nervous male, she reached behind herself and grabbed the wrist that Delver was holding by his hip against the chair's back. He didn't resist when she guided his hand forward, but she could feel his entire body trembling through his forearm.

Those trembles grew to tremors when she planted his palm against the fullness of her right buttock, squeezing his wrist lightly so that he couldn't pull away this time. "Don't let go," she told him, then released his arm.

Delver did as he was instructed and kept his hand on her rump, but just barely. He only kept enough contact that the decorative, curved stripe of fur under his paw's pad lightly brushed his palm, and his fingertips barely grazed the surface of Ileni's soft skin.

Her tail twitching impatiently, Ileni twisted and grabbed the young stag's other hand, planting it on her other buttock beside the first. She pressed his paw against her flesh until her left cheek flattened almost to her pelvis, the muscles in her buttock bulging out to the sides and making her crack lengthen as they squished against her other cheek. As soon as she released his wrist, though, Delver let her bottom bounce back to its natural roundness, barely holding his palm against it in exact imitation of his light touch against her right cheek.

The rabbit craned her neck around to give Delver an aggravated frown. "Why are you holding back?"

"I . . . ." the stag stammered, then tried again after gulping nervously. "I don't want to hurt you."

Ileni didn't know whether to laugh or roll her eyes irritably. "You won't," she told him firmly, but when his hands stayed paralyzed on her round bottom, she sighed and lifted a leg onto the passenger seat between Delver's spread thighs.

"What are you doing?" the buck asked, pressing himself back against the seat when the heel of her big, lapin foot grazed his stomach inches away from his erection.

"Just hold still." Lifting her other foot up beside the first, Ileni bent over, lowering her upper body forward until her head was nearly wedged between the bottom of the windshield and the dashboard. Delver did as he was told, staying completely motionless except for his hands, which followed her rump up toward his face when she stretched out her legs since she had told him not to let go. Once her digitigrade legs were as straight as they would go, her backside was at the level of the larger male's neck, her small tail brushing against his chin as it twitched back and forth. The stag almost lifted his face to look up at the relic's low ceiling, away from the rabbit's posterior under his muzzle, but caught himself before he'd moved an inch.

"What . . . what do you want me to do?" Delver stammered against the underside of her lifted tail.

"Whatever you want to do," Ileni replied impatiently, then sighed, trying to imagine what her reaction to their situation would have been if their roles had been reversed, and if she hadn't gone through such traumatic sexual trials already in the past few days. "You won't hurt me, Delver. Just relax, and do what feels natural."

That was evidently what the young stag needed to hear. Ileni could hear him swallowing convulsively behind her again, but his hands finally started moving against her backside, lightly tracing her bare skin beside the curved spikes of unshaved fur up her curved muscles to the root of her tail, then slowly further, his blunt fingertips grazing her skin up the small of her back and lightly stroking down from her spine to her skinny waist. It was neither a massage nor a back scratch, really, but rather something in between, and Ileni murred contentedly, setting the side of her face against the dashboard between her hands and pressing herself up into Delver's paws.

Then his muzzle was moving, and she felt his cervine lips touch the top of her right buttock in a gentle, hesitant kiss; just the light contact of those lips beside her tail, nothing more, but Ileni had to fight to keep herself from trembling at the feel of Delver's warm breath against her skin. His self restraint might have been keeping them from moving as quickly as Ileni might have wished, but she suddenly found it fiercely endearing.

Still rubbing her lower back, Delver moved his lips to her other buttock, his second kiss slightly lower on her body than the first, lips pressing lightly against the decorative tendril of white fur arching across her bottom. He kept his muzzle touching that one spot on her left cheek for a long few seconds before moving slowly inward, his light kisses following the curved trail of fur on her rump as it led into the crevice between her cheeks. Even bent nearly double as she was, the rabbit's bottom was full enough that she could have hidden herself from him with a single flex of her rump, if she had wanted to, but she kept her hindquarters relaxed, the inner curve of each half of her backside lightly caressing the sides of Delver's muzzle.

His hot breath washed over the back of her slit as he smelled her, each long inhalation so slow, it almost felt like the buck had fallen asleep with his nose inches away from her increasingly moist folds. Panting a little herself, Ileni resisted the urge to press herself back against him, determined to let Delver close the rest of the distance between himself and her vagina on his own terms. As long as his own terms made him touch her soon!

Her impatience made each second seem an eternity, but she really didn't have very long to wait before Delver's lips caressed the fullness of her mound, right over the center of her slit, his gentle kiss identical to those that had traced their way across her rump. This kiss lingered, though, and the stag's warm breath washed out of his mouth as well as from his nose to make beads of sweat emerge from Ileni's skin and mix with the anticipatory moisture already slicking her innermost folds.

The rabbit whimpered at the contact, the urge to press back against those lips so strong that she had to bite down on the side of her fist against the dashboard to hold herself still. Small as she was, she knew she could still take Delver's entire muzzle if she wanted to, though it wouldn't have been comfortable for her, and would likely scare the buck completely out of the lust filled trance he was in. The stag's muzzle was slightly larger than Alan's, who had inserted his vulpine face into Ileni's loins almost up to his eyes earlier that day, but Delver's nose and chin together still weren't as big around as Colt's penis had been. . . .

Fortunately, Delver parted his lips before Ileni could lose her self control, and his warm tongue caressed her slit, finally tasting the source of her musk. His hands traveled back past the sides of her hips to the fullness of her backside, the stag's thumbs dipping between her cheeks alongside his muzzle to keep them gently pried apart, giving him better access to her groin, and he began lapping at her vagina. It was torturously slow, at first, and the contact was fainter than a feather's brush, but the more he licked at her, the swifter and more heartfelt his tongue moved, until each long lick was parting her folds and invading the first inch or two of her vaginal tunnel.

Ileni closed her eyes and moaned blissfully, but as soon as she began to move her hips to match the buck's motions, his tongue bath stopped, and Delver's hands slid back up her body to her waist, letting her buttocks close around his muzzle again while his nose rested against the back of her slit, motionless save for the occasional tremble. The rabbit craned her neck around to see what was the matter, but couldn't see Delver's face past the curve of her bottom, so she reluctantly lowered her rump away from his muzzle, feeling hopelessly unsatisfied.

She was shocked, though, to find the stag's facial fur matted down with moisture. Her inner juices were only responsible for soaking his muzzle; the rest were his own tears. Delver had been silently weeping the entire time his face had been hidden by her backside, and now that he'd lost that protection, he turned his head away from her in obvious shame. Remembering how she'd wept in Alan's arms only a few hours earlier, Ileni stopped herself before she could ask why Delver was crying. He didn't need to explain. Ileni was far from the only person from the arena who had reason for tears.

Instead of saying something that would only further embarrass the stag, Ileni lowered her haunches down to her heels, carefully moved her upper body away from the dashboard and windshield, and turned to sit sideways on Delver's firm thighs, reaching around his waist and hugging his solid chest, their smooth skin heating as their bodies pressed against each other. After a moment's hesitation, the young buck returned her embrace, his arms wrapping around her shoulders and squeezing her with even more strength than she knew he possessed. Tight as the embrace was, though, Ileni made herself repress a startled squeak, not wanting Delver to think he was hurting her. She didn't want him to let go.

They stayed like that for some time, but it was hard for Ileni to keep herself still with the aroused musk still filling the airborne vehicle, and with Cill and Sophan grunting and moaning behind the passenger seat, and with Delver's erection caught between his stomach and her hip. The stag's slender penis was throbbing against Ileni's skin, its tip poking up above the side of her thigh and drooling pre over her skin even while Delver hugged her against himself.

The buck's chin was resting on top of Ileni's head, her long ear rubbing against the side of his face, until she leaned her upper body away from him, letting him keep clutching her waist against his stomach. "It's okay," she said softly, barely louder than a whisper, and reached up to rub at his tear-drenched cheek with a thumb. "We're going to be okay."

She waited while the buck sniffled down at her, leaning his face into the pads of her paw. Once he gave her a little nod, she began moving again. Whether the nod was from agreement or gratitude, Ileni wasn't sure, but Delver's warm body was no longer shaking with his sobs, even if tears still trickled out of the corners of his eyes.

Using one hand to encourage the stag's forearms to keep their hold around her middle, she turned on the passenger seat, crouching with her lapine feet together between Delver's thighs, and leaned back against his chest, the underside of her short tail pressing against his member. Ileni would have preferred to face the deer during their first time together, but the back of the cushioned chair would have been in the way of her knees, and she didn't want to ask him to move. Their current position would do well enough; she liked the feel of his arms hugging her slim belly, and his firm body was a reassuring comfort behind her.

Arching her back slightly, the rabbit pushed her rump against Delver's crotch, letting his shaft nestle between her full, round cheeks before gently flexing around it. He gasped behind her, and she felt a small splash of warm pre against the base of her tail. Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, Ileni reminded herself to go slowly and began sliding her bottom up and down his penis, holding the length of it lightly between muscles that were now capable of crushing rocks into fine gravel, letting the alternating stripes of white fur and bare skin massage the stag's heated flesh.

She only kept that up for a few seconds before lifting her haunches away from Delver's lap and reaching below her backside with one hand, curling her fingers around his shaft and guiding it between her folds. Once his slender tip had parted the back of her mound, she slowly lowered herself back down until she was sitting in his lap again, her groin pushing his sheath as far down as it would go. With a blissful groan, Ileni stretched her legs out in front of her one at a time, letting them dangle off the seat's edge between the stag's knees, making her vagina shift and tighten around the cervine rod embedded within it.

"Ileni. . . ." the young stag whimpered, his blunt fingers going rigid to either side of her navel. "Ileni, I'm not going to last long."

"It's all right," she moaned, gyrating her hips forward and backward without letting his phallus slide out of her. "I'm not, either."

Wiggling her hips from side to side, Ileni took one of his hands in hers and guided it up her smooth skin until he was cupping her breast, using her smaller fingers behind his own to make him give the soft orb a gentle squeeze, the pad of his palm pressing her pink nipple back into the skin around it. The rabbit moaned again, and he gasped, his legs going rigid and lifting them both up off of the seat's cushion. Ileni could feel his scrotum drawing tight under her rump; he hadn't been kidding about being close.

As the buck's warm seed splashed against her cervix, Ileni humped against him and wormed her free hand in the space between her closed thighs, rubbing the sensitive front of her mound as she panted in ecstasy. A few seconds after his climax began, Delver let his hips drop with an audible thump against the chair, and the few inches of his erection that had wriggled out of the rabbit's vagina with her vigorous movements shot back into her powerfully, making her insides flutter around his spent length while she cried out in her own orgasm. She pinched her clitoris between two fingers and arched her back again, pressing her breast forward against Delver's palm and her twitching bottom down and back against his lap, trying to take even more of his shaft.

Grinding herself against him, Ileni leaned her head back and gave the stag's chin and neck a few appreciative licks and kisses as her orgasm faded into a satisfied afterglow, and he lowered his muzzle to return his attention to her own neck and muzzle. Delver tried to let go of her breast when she dropped her hand onto his thigh, but she caught his wrist and planted his palm right back overtop her nipple, then guided his other hand down past her belly button and between her thighs. He shuddered when she left his paw pressed against her mound, his fingertips brushing the base of his softening penis underneath them.

"Just hold me," Ileni murmured. "Please."

For a long moment, Delver made no response, but he eventually nodded against the side of her ear, then kissed the crown of her head. His lips trembled as they grazed her fur, and she could hear his worn out sniffle. He was crying again, but Ileni hoped the reasons for his tears had changed.

Between the two front seats next to them, a spotted yellow face appeared, blinking in surprise. "Come on, Buck," he said with a lopsided grin. "I've had sex with her before, and even if she's having an off day, Ileni couldn't have been that bad."

Before Ileni could punch the insensitive cheetah - and her fingers were curling into a fist to do just that - Cill's arm wrapped around Sophan's neck and tugged him back onto the rear seat. "Get back here, kitten. I'm not done with you yet."

* * *

Some time later, long after Cill and Sophan had tired themselves out, they began their descent toward wherever it was the raccoon-wolf was taking them. Cill was back in the pilot's seat, the cheetah was snoring loudly behind them, and Ileni and Delver were lounging together in much the same position they'd settled in after mating with each other. The stag's erection had long since softened and retreated back into his sheath, but it had only taken a few minutes for it to reemerge, poking into one of Ileni's soft buttocks. She'd asked if he wanted her to help him with it again, half hoping he would say yes, but the stag had just shook his head against her ears and clutched her tighter against his chest, as if he was afraid that she would vanish the moment his arms released her. One of his paws was still cupped between her thighs, keeping her in a state of half arousal, as well, while his other hand had reached across her chest to cover her left breast, letting her other breast settle in the crook of his elbow. Her own paws were resting on his thighs, giving his smooth skin a little rub now and again to let him know she was still awake.

"Ileni?" he whispered beside her ear shortly after the beginning of their descent made her stomach leap into her chest.

"Mm hmm?" the rabbit murmured. She was beginning to fall asleep after all, cheetah snores or no cheetah snores.

Delver cleared his throat above her, and his hands began trembling slightly against her flesh. "Why. . . ." he began, then cleared his throat again. "Why did you choose me? To come with you, I mean."

"Your name was the only one I could remember," she told him sleepily, then immediately regretted it. It was an honest answer, but after what they had just done together, few responses could have been so callous. And here she had been thinking Sophan was insensitive!

After another moment, though, Delver surprised her by hugging her to him even tighter, his muzzle lowering to the side of her neck and nuzzling her affectionately. "Thank you," he whispered, with so much heartfelt passion that the rabbit felt tears spring into her own eyes.

She hadn't really understood why she had picked Delver above all the other refugees that had so wanted to join her on Cill's voyage west, and still wasn't certain if she'd had any reason other than the one she'd told Delver about, his name being the only one that popped into her head. What she was sure about, however, was that she was indescribably happy that it had.