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Soon enough, the second sun slipped below the western hills, the whole sky turned magnificently to the dark blues and blacks of dusk, and there was the orange red of a huge bonfire burning straight ahead of them down the path. It had taken Artemis and Enichi longer than they'd thought to get back, but now, looking at each other with grins plastered to their features and both jumping up and down a little inside, they rushed paw in wing back along the path towards the fire burning brightly in front of their owner's cabin.

Takashi and Burr had since reappeared from doing whatever it was they were doing, and they were sitting with the rest of the pokemon and Twilight around the pit, warming their tails. It was the perfect night. No clouds in the sky, so all the stars shone down on them perfectly, clearly. Cool spring breezes kept blowing, a little chill now that the suns had set, and so they all huddled a little closer to one another. The crickets sang in all the trees, and every so often, an Owl would hoot off in the distance.

Twi and Ki and Ge and Star and Flame and Tangie were all still relaxing, resting from having built the fire. Next to Twi sat the frog sack, now full of frog quarters. They were all waiting for the Noctowl and the Zangoose to make it back. Then Twi would give her usual speech, then they would pray, then they would all pick up the long, sharpened branch that lay next to each of them, stick three or four frog quarters on it, stick it out over the fire, and sit back and enjoy each other's company.

"Hey, Twi?" said Ge out of nowhere, breaking the peaceful silence that had enveloped them.

"Ya, hun?"

"When're you going to begin our training again? I don't know about anyone else, but I'm starting to get itchy."

"Well. I still have to talk to Enichi about that. If he's going to live here, he's going to have to train, too. But come on, Ge, it's only been a day or so."

"Yeah well I miss running."

"Ya," said Ki, "and I miss him running." And everyone else giggled, much to the Espeon's confused embarrassment. She hadn't thought anyone else would have known what she'd meant. "Hey..." she said, looking around, a blush rising rose to her lavender cheeks.

"Aw c'mon, Ki," said Star. "We all know what happens when Ge gets back from training."

"It does happen every time," said Tangie.

Ki's ears went back against her head, and her blush continued to surge. She didn't mind that they knew that she and Ge mated, but she didn't like they they knew when they mated. Most of the rest were so open about yiff. They all fucked each other, told each other when they were going to do each other, had plenty of orgies (not that those weren't fantastic), and talked about sex like anything else.

Which was all fine with her ninety percent of the time. But she liked to be private with Ge, her mate. Because she felt like each time for them was something only they could understand, and now she would feel like she was being watched.

"Shh, it's okay, babe," Ge cooed, nuzzling her from where he lay next to her. "We can be alone whenever we wanna be."

"Ya, but..." Ki looked down. Then back up at everyone else around the circle. "Please don't... I mean, guys, that's one thing I don't want any of you to be a part of, okay?"

There was a moment of silence where everyone came to realize what had just happened. They all started to hang their heads.

"Ya," said Twi. "We're sorry, Ki. Sometimes I think we all forget that we can't just take what we want from each other all the time... just because we're good enough friends that we can most of the time. Or maybe that there are some things none of us deserve to have taken from us by anyone." The Yoshi looked around the circle at the others. At Takashi the big Nidoking, who was blushing and looking down like the whole thing was his fault.

"I'm sorry, Ge," Star said, turning to face the Umbreon sitting next to her.

"Star," he said, "you're a good girl, but sometimes I think you need to calm down and look at what's going on around you before you open your beak or flap your wings. It's okay. Everyone does know I'm horny when I get back from my runs. And yeah," he went on, blushing and looking over at the Tangela for a second, "it does happen every time, Tangie. Flame and I have had a lot of very good times after training for the day is over. It's just that, when I make love to my mate, I don't want anything to interfere with that, not even my friends. Because of how special it is to just Ki and me."

Star nodded. "Of course, friend." Then she looked down and giggled awkwardly. "At least I don't have to be afraid of you like I was before when I made you angry..."

"...No," Ge said after a moment's pause. "You don't. I'd never... I mean... I won't repeat what I used to say to you."

Flame made his voice heard for the first time in a while: "We all had to do a lot of learning before we could get along with each other, didn't we?"

Tangie next to him nodded, as did Twi. "I told you all it would turn out right in the end, didn't I?" the Yoshi said, smiling happily.

"I couldn't imagine living without you all now," piped up Burr in her tiny Sandshrew voice from the Nidoking's lap. Takashi smiled and pet her head.

"Neither could I," said Artemis solumnly, stepping out of the shadows where she had drawn Enichi so they wouldn't interrupt the conversation too early.

Everyone turned to them. Stars twinkled and darkness shone high up in the sky above them all.

"You took me away from my family," said Enichi.

And everyone held their breath, unable to think anything but that he'd finally gotten up the courage to put shame on them all with his words.

"...But I never had a family to begin with," he went on, "not really. ...Well, I mean, maybe I've had a lot of families. And I never felt at home with any of them. It's not something I really like talking about, and I'm no good at talking to begin with." He turned to Twilight.

"You brought me here, Twi, and when I faced you back there in the forest, all I could think was how I had never wanted to get captured again, about how I'd never wanted to leave my new brothers and sisters. But I realized something when I was walking with Artemis just now. I've had a lot of brothers and sisters... or people who've called themselves that. I realized I've never really had anyone long, not like I've wanted them. My mother and father were killed when I was very, very little. So little that I can only very barely remember their scents. I don't remember what they were killed by, and I've always wondered. I realized--when I was walking with Artemis--that since then I've been searching for a real family. I need to find real brothers and sisters and a real mom and dad."

"Are you leaving us, then?" asked Twi quietly.

"No, Twi," the little Zangoose said. "I want all of you to be my family. I don't know if you can be right away, but Twi, the first night, when I was scared from my dream, you made me feel safe and warm and wanted. I realized that after you visited me there by the fire, I slept soundly. And I wasn't sad that I'd been captured. So please, Twi... will you keep me and train me?"

Twilight smiled. "Come here, Enichi."

And the Zangoose walked up to her. Then Twi opened her arms and Enichi tripped over his own feet in nervousness and fell awkwardly into them. But the embrace she held him in was warm and tight, and she said,

"Of course I will. Welcome, my brave little Zangoose."

They stayed that way for a moment, and everyone around the fire looked on, smiling.

"...Well," said Twi, gently releasing him, standing up, and looking around the circle at all the familiar faces, "I know I usually make a speech right about now, but I don't think there's anything left to say."

She smiled as if something really significant had been achieved. "Let tonight be so we can welcome Enichi here and make him a part of our family. And let all of us grow to love each other more and more with each day." On this note, Twi bent down a little, picked Star, her Farfetch'd, a couple of feet up off the ground, and wrapped her in a tight hug.

She licked Star's neck, and Star licked at Twi's, in a form of a kiss for avians mated to non-avians. Then Twi put her back down, and the Duck wrapped her wings around Twi's right leg and leaned against her love. Enichi stood to the left of the pair next to Artemis. They didn't kiss, nor did Takashi and Burr. They just smiled and hugged, giving each other whatever affection they thought they could give to the person standing next to them.

Twi went on, "Now. When you're all done kissing your mates, we'll all sit and have a moment of prayer for our food tonight. So that with every bite we take, we remember to honor those who give their lives for us to eat. And to remember that our own lives are just as temporary. May we remember to live each day as we want, always free, and to constantly hold inner thanks for the life we have."

And everyone sat, closed their eyes, and hung their head for a moment in silence, lost in their thoughts.

When everyone had opened their eyes, Twi was the first to speak again. "Now. Be sure to have a good time tonight--cuz your training starts again tomorrow. And let's not forget it's Enichi's first real night with all of us. I'm sure each one of you has your own plan in mind to make him feel like he's one of us." The Yoshi giggled, letting herself be transparent, figuring he'd find out soon enough anyway. Enichi blushed really hard and looked at Artemis as if to ask, "Should I be scared?" The Owl replied with a gentle smile and a warm giggle just like Twi's.

Takashi already had two sticks out over the fire with frog quarters on them, and he and Burr were both sitting forward and watching them, their lit up faces grinning and licking their lips as the frog meat started to crisp and the fat started to sizzle. Soon, Star, Twi, Artemis, and Enichi all started fixing their frog quarters on their sticks, and the bag was being passed to Tangie now, going clockwise around the circle.

"So, Twi," said Takashi, probably continuing a conversation from earlier, looking to his right at the Yoshi, who looked back, "did you ever hear from that cloakmaker?"

"Nope," returned Twi, "and I don't think he'll be coming back to town, either. He said he had some urgent business with his family, but I think he was really just homesick. Can't blame him; he lives all the way north in Riqsa."

"Shame, too," said Tangie, looking over the fire. "He had some really nice stuff."

"Ya," said Twi. "And it's not like I'm short on coin or anything." She giggled, and everyone but Enichi chuckled at this. It was apparently an inside joke. He stored that as something he would have to ask her personally later.

"Where is Riqsa?" asked Takashi, already munching on his first frog leg, petting Burr, who was chomping away on her frog head with surprisingly large and sharp teeth.

"In one of the Dragon's provinces, right, Twi?" said Flame.

"Ya, I think it's near the capital of Assar province," she said.

"Assar... That's the middle one, right?" said Takashi, taking a momentary break from his meat to draw a map in the air with his finger.

"Yea, that's right," said Artemis, looking over and pulling her own frog thigh and leg off her stick. "That's the top middle one of the nine."

"I wonder how they live up there in those controlled provinces," said Ge.

"Probably not as well as we do," said Artemis, smirking.

"And here we are, right in the middle of it all," said Ki. "Dragons and Unicorns... huh. They can fight for all I care."

"C'mon, Ki," said Flame. "You can't not care that they're killing each other in battles every day."

"There's no reason to fight," said Ki. "It hasn't got anything to do with me. I don't fight."

"Yes you do," giggled Tangie, "you're a pokemon. You fight in contests."

"You know what I mean," said Ki. "Those are set up. And in arenas. I mean, no one kills anyone in those. They have judges and everything. There are no judges in the real world. Sometimes I think not everyone should be free."

Enichi, who had been looking very uncomfortable, piped up with something from earlier he hadn't understood. "Dragons? Unicorns?"

Twi looked at Ki, who looked at Star, who looked at Flame, who looked at Ge, who looked at Tangie. And then they all looked at Enichi. Takashi and Burr just went on with their meals, roasting their second frog quarters now. Artemis was the one to actually answer him.

"Huh. I guess you wouldn't know, Enichi, since you've never really been out into the real world. So there are these two factions..."

Ignoring the low blow, assuming it wasn't intended, he instead interrupted to ask about a word he didn't know. "Fack-shons?" he asked, looking over at her, holding his stick over the fire with both hands.

"Groups," said Artemis, "who don't... well, they hate each other. They've hated each other for a very long time now, and they're trying to kill each other. Or gain control of everyone, whichever comes first."

Enichi looked very scared and surprised, but Twi said, "don't listen to Artemis, she's biased as all hell, and the poor chick doesn't know what she's talking about." To which Artemis put her wings on her hips, leaned forward, and stuck her stubby tongue way out as far as she could at Twi.

Twi shot out her Yoshi tongue and tagged Artemis on the cheek with it--and giggled after it had reflexed back into her mouth. Then, turning her head to Enichi and munching on a half of a frog breast, throwing the bones into the pail Tangie had carried out earlier and passing it on, the Yoshi explained:

"Back a long time ago, Enichi, there were hardly any furs in Naaiyar. That's what we call this world, if you didn't know. There were hardly any furs because to breed one, the father has to be Human, and the mother has to be a different kind of animal. And there just aren't a lot of Humans. There never were. Don't ask me why Humans are special, but their sperm can impregnate any species." (Enichi blushed at the word "sperm." It sounded so clean for something so dirty.) Twi went on:

"Now most of the talking animals--not the ones we hunt for food but the ones like you pokemon--accepted and liked the furries. But the Dragons and the Unicorns were very old and very proud. They existed a long time before anyone else, and it's said that the first of them were gods who were kicked out of Naai, the eternal paradise, for devising magic.

"Neither the Dragons nor the Unicorns were comfortable with the furs at all. They felt mixing breeds that way was a dirty and a Wrong thing. Now furries have been around for only a couple hundred years, and there is still a big disagreement all throughout the world whether furries should be allowed to continue living. There are places in this world I can't go--and pokemon tournaments none of us can attend--simply because I was born the way I was, to a Human father and a Yoshi mother.

"I don't dare go to anywhere but places in the three middle provinces. Out of the nine this world's creatures are divided into, the Dragons control the three northern ones, and the Unicorns control the three southern ones. The three in the middle are free, and I feel pretty safe in them even though there are pretty constantly battles taking place all over.

"Anyway, Enichi, you see, both the Dragons and the Unicorns want the furs to wiped from the face of Naaiyar. But they both also hate the other. So here's the funny thing. The Dragons were the first to start attacking towns in the arctic north so as to exterminate the furries there. They attacked dozens upon dozens of their own villages and cities, their overzealous armies raping, killing, pillaging, and burning many of them.

"When the Unicorns started hearing of this, they decided the Dragons had gone too far, so they would have to take revenge on them--on the Dragons for destroying their own cities. It just didn't make any sense at all. The Unicorns passed laws throughout their peoples that forbade the killing of furries.

"But they still hate us down there, Enichi. If any Unicorn met any fur in a dark alley, the Unicorn would walk out with blood-stained lips having just had a nice meal. Or Gods forbid a fur commit a crime there; she'll be tortured and killed without trials like most cities here in the middle states have. Down there, the only difference from the Dragon territories is they can't kill us in public. It's a very sad state of affairs.

"And what's worse than that is this. About a hundred years ago, maybe a hundred and twenty now, sectors of the Dragon and Unicorn armies banded together temporarily, under the direction of their leaders, to eradicate the Humans so that no more furries would be born. But they couldn't simply kill them and expect to get away with it. Furries may be relatively new and controversial in the populus, but Humans are a species that had been around for many thousands of years.

"The head Dragon and Unicorn chiefs understood how tenuous their control over their supporters really was--and that they'd face an extreme backlash if they killed the Humans. So over three or four years, collectively known now as the Purification, Humans were kidnapped in the dead of night from their homes all over the world.

"They were sent to a large island off the northeast coast of the gigantic continent that is the mass of Naaiyar's land where, they thought, it was too icy, too cold, and too barren to settle. The Humans, without the numbers to fight back, had to be resourceful. They eventually managed to build cities and towns there on the ice. They invented greenhouses, they built houses called igloos, and they further developed the once rare art of sewing to wrap themselves in stuffed cloth for warmth."

"That's amazing," said Enichi, now roasting second stick full of frog quarters. (The sack had gone down by half during Twi's storytime, and everyone was relaxed despite the frightful nature of Twi's tale, sure that nothing would happen to them here in their valley. They were a family, after all, with nothing for miles around to harm them. Under the shining stars and filled with the warmth of the fire.)

Enichi smiled at Twi. "Tell me more about this world," he said.

"Okay," said Twi, smiling back at him. "Let me tell you another story."

"There are many tales about how the world began," she said, "but the one everyone knows of is the Naairi. That's 'Naai' like 'Gods' or 'heaven' and 'ri' as in the first part of 'story.'" ("Rikan" meant "story" because "ri" meant "tale" and "kan" kind of meant "complex" or "extensive.")

"At first, you see," Twi went on, "there were a lot of people who thought a lot about how the world began. And... well, I don't mean to say that there aren't anymore, but back then, everyone had a different explanation. This kinda goes along with how people lived long ago. Thousands of years ago, there were no cities or towns because everyone moved around all the time. No one stayed in one place for their whole lives. Or even more than a few months most of the time. And there were a lot of groups of people--"

"Fack-shons?" interrupted Enichi, and Twi grinned.

"Factions are groups that are all part of a larger group, Enichi. Artemis was a little off."

"Oh," said the little Zangoose, nodding.

"None of these groups belonged to any other group," said Twi. "They all had their own way of life, their own rules, and their own beliefs. But that's a story for another time. What I'm trying to say is: all these little groups--I suppose you might call them tribes--had their own way of thinking about how the world began. And when they met up sometimes, they'd fight about who was right.

"It was only after people settled down in villages that they started talking with each other and came to see that no one really knew anything about it. No one was actually there when people lived in Naai--except the Dragons and the Unicorns. They had been born in Naai originally, and then they escaped or were tossed out or something. How they got out, and why, is a secret they both guard fiercely.

"...Anyway," Twi went on, munching on another Frog's leg, "The Dragons and the Unicorns wrote the Naairi. But for many, many years before they ever wrote it down, before anyone knew how to write or had spread written language, both tribes passed down legends orally. By parents telling their children and by them telling their own children when they became parents."

"Ooh," said Enichi, as if this were a conversation just between him and Twi just because everyone else was doing nothing but listening. "Ooh, that musta been hard to do."

"It was," said Twi. "Especially cuz no parent knew even a whole tale, much less more than one tale. Because these were stories that evolved over time from campfire stories. Long, long ago, people wandering around the land in tribes would sit at night around bonfires like we're doing now. And they would cook their food and stay warm and tell stories. These stories got so long and complex that no one person could remember a whole one, much less more than one. So they divided them up, and everyone in the tribe was responsible for remembering three or six lines.

"They might all be lines from the same tale, or they might all be lines from different tales, or somewhere inbetween. But when the whole tribe sat around the fire and told the tales, the people would say their lines in order, and they put the tales back together. Each set of parents would teach their children the lines they were responsible for knowing, and when they grew up, they took their parents' places at the fire. New tales were getting invented all the time, probably cuz kits got bored just remembering the same old lines, and eventually, they wrote them all down.

"So they turned that into the Naairi?" asked Enichi.

"Yea," said Twi. "Cuz remember, the tales all grew out of the memories the very first Dragons and Unicorns had of Naai."

"I thought you said the kits invented their own tales?" said Enichi.

"I did," nodded Twi. "Some of the tales turned out to be completely false. Or were stories of what happened in Naaiyar instead, which they added to another book called--guess--the Naaiyar'ri. But some had remained from the very first, and some the kits extrapolated from things their parents had told them about Naai individually. Stories passed down just in the family, you know. So when everyone had settled down and started talking with each other, people found out that the Dragons and Unicorns were the only ones who might have truth to their tales.

"Back when they were still great and kind cultures, the Dragons and the Unicorns decided to get together to write the Naairi. They went to a town called Babel right in the middle of the continent and told each other the stories they had been brought up with. A lot of them, the other side was hearing for the first time. But the amazing thing is that they had a lot of tales in common. And these tribes had wandered completely opposite sides of the world--the Dragons, the north; and the Unicorns, the south. So because lots of the tales matched, they knew they had to be true, and the rest of creatures believed them, too.

"The book is written in a weird way--since everyone only knew a few lines from different tales. It's written in a bunch of little passages, one line and one person to each passage. And the tales are reconstructed in the book just like they were reconstructed around the fire. The tales about Naai that didn't match up, they threw out. But a great, great many of them did--hundreds."

"Wooooooow," Enichi gasped with wide eyes at the word "hundreds." "So they know how the world began?"

"They know how Naaiyar AND Naai began," said Twi.

"How do they know that since they were born after it began?" Artemis suddenly complained, ever cynical.

"Cuz Time and Nature told 'em," said Twi, her hands on her hips.

"Who are Time and Nature?" asked Enichi, now really ready to hear one of the tales.

"They're the ones who created it. They're the first Godesses."

"They were females?"

"Mm," said Twi, shaking her head, "they were herms."

"Herms?" Enichi said, tilting his head.

"Hermaphrodites. You've never seen someone with both male and female parts?"

"No..." said Enichi, disbelieving.

"Well..." said Twi, looking almost disappointed, "we haven't got one amoung us, so I can't show you, but... I can't believe you haven't seen one before."

"Twi," said Enichi, feeling unusually courageous since all his questions were getting answered. "I only saw my own cock for the first time today," he said, using a word he remembered from his Human family. Star actually went wide-eyed when he said it, suprised to hear it coming out of a little cub's mouth. It had been her impression that he was all innocent and stuff.

But Twi didn't notice, really. She was just nodding in understanding. "Ahhhhh. So you probably didn't really notice when you saw them cuz they looked like females."

"But they woulda had balls and a pussy, right?" said Tangie, not understanding.

"Yea," said Twi as the fire crackled, "but look at your mate."

"Oooooh, you're so right!" she said. "Cuz his balls are up under his tummy scales."

"Right," said Twi, "you can't see 'em."

"But he was hanging around other people 'sides scalies," said Takashi in his deeper voice, looking up and still not understanding.

"So maybe the only herms he was ever around were scalies?" said Burr.

"It's possible," said Flame, taking the last frog out of the bag and giving it to his mate, "but I doubt it. There are a lot of herms. In every species. There musta been some other way he missed 'em."

"You mean..." said Enichi, just having figured it out, "that there are creatures with both cocks and pussies?"

Star blushed hard to hear those words come out of his mouth again. There was something very intensely erotic about him, with that high little voice, saying dirty words. Even though they were as common as night and day, she had expected him to say penes and vulvae--or more likely, just not say them at all. In any case, she stared at him, almost drooling, as Artemis answered him:

"Yea, there are. Are you sure you haven't seen anyone like that before? I mean, I can understand that you never saw anyone with their cock out before, but you musta seen someone with both balls and breasts, right?"

"Well... there weren't any in my Zangoose family, and there weren't any..." (he hesitated before revealing the information) "...in my Human family, but you know what? There were a couple of the pokemon that Allison had who had both. I just thought they were weird, and I never asked them about it. ...So you mean... they could have fucked someone at the same time they were getting fucked?"

Star almost fainted. "Yep," she quickly said, literally almost panting, and she whispered something in Twi's ear, to which Twi laughed loudly and told her softly, "go for it."

"Wow," said Enichi. "...That's awesome! They're so lucky."

"Some would say they are, and some would say they aren't," said Twi, grinning. But she wasn't grinning at Enichi's exclamation, exactly. "Look down, Enichi," she told him, and he did. There was his five inches of dark red Zangoose meat bouncing back and forth against his belly, out in the open air for everyone to see. Every one of them around the circle, including Artemis, the one he would have called his sister, was staring at him hungrily. Enichi blushed hard but he grinned up and looked around the circle.

"I guess herms turn me on," he said, hoping he was using these terms right.

"I'll say," said Twi, licking her lips. "Well, would'ya like to be taken care of?"

Enichi's heart skipped a beat and he forgot all about the tales of the Naairi. "Oh yes," he said, "yes, please."