FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It coiled through the air like a snake gliding through grass. The thin trail of white smoke drifted higher and higher until it began to fade into the backdrop of a weathered oak ceiling. As soon as it was gone a new one took its place, the smoke twisting through the air in a different pattern until it, too, faded to nothing. One after another strings of smoke rose through the air only to die, each dancing differently from the last and each just as fleeting.

“I can be there by Friday the 23rd, but no sooner, if that’s alright with you, sir.” A male voice spoke from across the room, a young one, but strong, his confidence giving him strength whenever his age could not.

“Why so long? Cadeena is only four days away, lad!” Another male voice spoke up, this one older and with the crack and gravel of someone who’s lips have tasted too much smoke and liquor in his time.

“I’m afraid I can’t travel directly there, sir. I have to first deliver a parcel to Melith, and then I can go to Cadeena. The 23rd is the earliest I can get there, I’m very sorry.” The younger man, her Courier, replied politely, but with the tone of voice she taught him to use so that all would know his route to travel was rigid like iron and he could not be swayed to think otherwise.

More smoke filled the air, but now as small puffs, like the smallest of fluffy dinner rolls, and sitting below them on the floor was a small child who took delight in watching the smoke appear and take shape, rising and vanishing as smoke was want to do. The little boy giggled and asked to see more snakes.

She replied to him with a warm smile.

The wooden pipe, it stem long and narrow, was held between two slender russet furred fingers. Her hand rose and touched the pipe to her lips again, ones perched at the end of a muzzle as russet as her fingers. After a slow drag the pipe was lowered back down, and her long face tilted up to exhale gently through lips pursed like they longed to whistle. A stream of smoke escaped her lips and filled the air, the woman’s head moving in a slow circle to coil the smoke like a serpent flying skyward before it vanished against the backdrop of the blacksmith’s ceiling.

“Well, I can’t get it there any faster myself, so I guess it’ll have to do.” The older voice said, the blacksmith was unhappy about his letter only moving as fast as six days instead of four.

“I’m sorry again, sir. If I didn’t have to pass through Melith I could be in Cadeena in four days, like you said, or perhaps even three.” Her young Courier replied.

“Do circles again!” The little boy, the blacksmith’s grandson, asked and so the pipe was lifted back up to her lips where she took another long drag.

When she was done, she puffed out a ring of smoke, and then another, and then yet more until her lungs were empty with six perfect rings rising through the air. The white rings of smoke drifted higher and higher until they began to break across the ceiling.

“Hilda.” She heard her name being called, the need for her attention pulling her away from amusing the young boy.

She turned to see her Courier, a young man named Cassian, waiting for her. She nodded, then began to lift herself up from her seat.

As she rose from her chair in the sitting room, she patted the child on the head with a tussle of her hand and told him goodbye. Without much of a pout he happily thanked her for all the shapes she blew with the smoke from her pipe, and then she followed Cassian towards the door, her companion carefully tucking a wax sealed envelope into his leather satchel for safe keeping.

When they were back outside the sun was shining high, the clock of the sky telling them that it was a little bit after noon and that they had several hours of sunlight left to them.

“We need to reach Melith in two days so that we can be in Cadeena by the 23rd. That’s six days.” He told her, the pair now walking towards their only horse, a large and reliable dappled mare named Dolly.

Hilda took another long drag on her pipe, thinking now and retracing her many steps across the Republic of Lower Dale, counting in her head the many clops of Dolly’s hooves to consider how long and how far they could travel before night fell, and then beyond Derry an onward towards Melith.

Her mind whirled to life like the wooden wheel of a flour mill, envisioning their journey from where they now stood to where they would need to be with her years of experience telling her just what she needed to know to travel from one place to another, and to do so quickly and safely.

They would travel first to the town of Derry and spend the night there, and then at sunrise they would ride towards Melith by way of Dougher, arriving by evening to spend the night there, and then they would be in Melith by noon the next day at the latest.

“If we leave now and ride until evening, we can reach Derry in time for dinner.” She told Cassian.

She would wait until they actually reached Melith before she planned how to best reach Cadeena in the six promised days, though she suspected they would ride there by way of Cort and Bough, as that would be the most efficient way by horse this time of year.

And all while they traveled, she would educate him on the journey, not merely telling him when they would arrive and how they got there, but the why of it. He was her junior but would one day find himself someone else’s senior. Her wisdom needed to become his wisdom.

Her duty to Cassian, as a Knight of the Hound, was to keep him safe, and guide him true, so that every letter and parcel he carried reached their destination quickly and with care. Life afforded few guarantees outside of death and taxes but knowing that a letter sent by Hound would always reach its destination was one guarantee that came without pain or pound of flesh. It cost only one silver per day of travel, which was an honest price any could afford if the letter or parcel had value enough to be sent by Hound.

“Then I guess we leave now!” He replied with a smile, grabbing onto the saddle, and lifting his foot to set it into one of Dolly’s stirrups.

She stepped up behind him, grabbing him by his belt to help him up into Dolly’s saddle. With her height and strength, he was easy to lift, with the young man now sitting at Hilda’s eye level.

He was short for a man, his youth not to blame but his heritage. His father had been short, too. The mare snorted, shaking her head now that weight had begun to settle onto her back. She took his satchel from him and secured it to the side of Dolly’s saddle bag.

She then put her foot into the same stirrup he had used, and stepped up, Dolly shaking her head again with an indignant snort at the sudden arrival of even more weight. Her leg swung over the mare, and then behind her Courier she now sat, her arms wrapping around Cassian to take the reins from him.

Her long snout appeared over his shoulder, along with the narrow pipe still pinching between her lips as she exhaled a stream of narrow smoke from her nose.

“Oh, don’t smoke over my shoulder, Hilda!” He complained, lifting his hand to fan it in front of his face.

She chuckled at that, smiling broadly at him before plucking the pipe from her lips. Holding it aside she tipped it upside down before tapping its contents out onto the dirt at Dolly’s hooves. When she finished, she tucked her pipe into a pocket at the front of her tunic, before gently digging her heels into the mare’s sides to beckon Dolly to start trotting her way towards the town of Derry.

In times long past, well before Hilda and Cassian were born, there had been no need for a pair like them to roam the land atop a horse. In fact, Couriers of any kind weren’t needed. If you had a parcel or parchment that needed sending you just took it yourself or gave it to a passerby or neighbor who was traveling in the direction your item needed going. People sorted their own business by their own terms, and there was no organized method of it like how it was now with the Hound.

But the Republic of Lower Dale was a large place.

To its northeastern border you had the mountains, and it was there that the Befouled, the wretched little creatures, made their nest. For a very long time the Befouled kept to their mountainous home, dense with its trees and riddled with dank caves. It was hardly a welcome place, and best to be avoided.

And then just south of the mountains were the great plains, the breadbasket of the whole Republic, and it was here that Man lived. The Men of the plains mostly kept to themselves as farmers and tradesmen.

If you traveled much further south than that, and very far away from the mountains, you would find the coastlands settled by the Dalhund, the canine-like people of great height and slender snout. Hilda happened to be a Dalhund, but unlike her ancestors she lived her life as a soldier not sailor, having now served for many years as Knight of the Hound.

The history of the Hound began when the Men of the plains began to settle further north with their homes and farms until the Befouled began to grow angry with them. The promise of rich wood from the mountain forests had been too appealing to ignore, so it was inevitable that Men would wander further north, and that their good sense would fail to stop them.

The vile little creatures that made the mountains their home were very territorial. Things quickly began to change for the worse once the Befouled scurried from their caves and trees and began attacking the homesteads and logging yards, and with each successful atrocity inflicted on Man the creatures grew bolder as more blood filled the air.

The Befouled were small things, hairless and weak, with wrinkled grey skin and faces pinched tight around their pointed mouths. They were like child-sized baby birds, featherless with unsightly bugling eyes. They were horrible and nasty, they could not speak the common tongue, but spoke to each other like carrion birds and worse. They lived together in large tribes with many dozens of members, or so far as it was known.

The attacks on the homesteads kept happening with the farmers and settlers struggling to survive. The Befouled only ever attacked in small groups, harassing their victims, and terrorizing them by night when it was safest for them to move around unchallenged.

And then the creatures decided to move as an army.

The Befouled attacked en masse in the dead of night, an army swollen with every adult of their kind be it male or female, and in short order they ransacked one settlement after another. Though small they may have been, they attacked like cornered animals, almost without care for their own safety. With their fangs, claws, and crude tools, they bit, slashed, and clubbed their way across the plains.

There were too many of them for farmers to defend against, and their rage was too boiling hot for them to slow their pace. In hindsight, it was now believed that they’d grown sour by their failed attempt to force Man to flee the mountains, and so they decided to simply flood the land until there wasn’t anything left. Even the best men with the finest swords could not stop the flood of them, as their numbers were simply too great. They were like ants crawling a body, biting viciously until the victim finally collapsed exhausted.

In a single year the Men of the plains were shoved south into the coastal domain of the Dalhund. No one could count the bodies of the dead; it was far too many. Refugees were spilling south in such great numbers that the towns and villages struggled to board them. When the Befouled finally reached the first Dalhund farm their advance met its first taste of defeat.

The Dalhund, like Hilda herself, are a peaceful people, but even the gentlest of animals will snarl if you set fire to their den, and the Dalhund could snarl viciously indeed.

It took the Befouled one year to take the plains, and then it took five years for the races of Men and Dalhund to take it back, and by the end of it the corpses of the Befouled were piled so high that they stained the soil and tainted it for a generation. Life refused to grow wherever large numbers of the creatures were left to rot where they’d fallen. Even to this day there are patches of dead earth where the corpses had been buried deep in the ground. Bad places, those were.

And it was during this five-year war against the Befouled that the Couriers of the Hound were formed. There was a need to send letters of military importance from one battlefield to the next, but with the land crawling with Befouled you could not trust a single horse and rider to reach their destination safely. So, bands of men were formed, and they would send letters by horse with armed guard. The more important the news the more heavily armed they traveled.

As the months and years passed, villagers and townsfolk began to bribe the Couriers to send letters, sometimes parcels, of their own and this was tolerated because it gave the army more money to spend on the war. Over time, it became normal to ferry letters and goods as a Courier, and after the war with the Befouled ended the Couriers kept up their duties, moving letters and parcels about the Republic with an armed guard.

Once the Northern Wall was built between the plains and the mountains, offering a protective barrier against the Befouled that they could not cross without notice, a Courier no longer needed several guards to keep them safe. Eventually it was deemed suitable that a single Dalhund was all that was needed, as a Dalhund was worth two of any man in battle, and Hilda was worth two, or perhaps two and a half if one of the men was quite tall.

Her Courier, Cassian, was a young fresh into adulthood, still learning to find his footing in the profession. She was both his elder in age as well as her years of service. Hilda had served previous Couriers in her time with the Hound. One day he will be wise enough to teach a Dalhund like her how to do their job well, just like how Hilda’s first Courier had done for her. When she first began, the Courier she traveled with knew the roads and villages like he’d been born and raised in each of them. She’d learned a lot from him.

She missed him still.

Hilda’s pipe remained in her pocket until they began to see the outskirts of Derry on the horizon.

The town of Derry was a small farming village that sat at the crossroads between several larger towns. Many passed through Derry to travel, but few stayed long enough to set roots. The villagers here were simple folk that farmed crops and husbanded animals only for their own use. Most of the silver that lined the pockets of Derry came from the travelers that passed through the village on their way to other places.

“Must you?” Cassian asked her as she plucked her pipe from her pocket and placed it between her lips.

“It’s been hours since you last smelled it. I need to make sure you don’t forget it for when I send you out to buy me more.” She replied around her pipe as she fished for the tobacco she kept hidden in her tunic.

She found it in her inside pocket, pulling out the small drawstring bag filled with her favorite tobacco. A smile was on her face as she wrapped her arms around her Courier so she could look over his shoulder while she pinched a pipe’s worth of tobacco from the bag before lifting it to the end of her pipe. She pressed it into the bowl before going back to fish through her tunic until she found her matches.

She struck one, lighting her pipe with a few puffs of air from her mouth until smoke began to appear.

“I wish you smoked something that smelled better.” He complained.

“Better smelling tobacco doesn’t open my nose any.” She replied, shaking her match until it was extinguished well enough to toss to the road.

The tobacco she used was one commonly smoked by many a Dalhund in the plains. It had a strong smell to the passerby, similar to cinnamon but with the heat of ginger and spices. It was good for keeping the nose open and clear, and many Dalhund found their sense of smell was much improved as a result. It became more common for Dalhund to smoke during the war, as it made it all the easier to smell the Befouled, as the creatures always had a strong stench about them.

It took time to get used to the intense flavor of this kind of tobacco, but after a while you started to crave it. She also felt more at ease when she smoked.

“Maybe. Are we still making good time if we stop in Derry? Seems kind of early still.” He asked her.

“We’ll be on time. We should always stop for a proper rest unless we have no choice otherwise.” She reminded him.

They could push onward through Derry and set up a small camp on the roadside until morning, but sleeping on hard ground and in this cool weather would not be good for either of them. She did not like being out where they were vulnerable, and the poor sleep and rest you got from a tent left you more tired than you would have otherwise.

It’s always better to rest in a bed and arrive at your destination at noontime, both in good health and spirit, than to arrive there in the morning exhausted and weak.

And better to be late than to not arrive at all. Hilda had learned this lesson the hard way a very long time ago.

“Cadeena is a long ways away.” Cassian worried.

“We will be on time.” She told him, blowing smoke to the side before scratching her fingers through the hair atop his head.

She heard him sigh.

Her Courier was but a young man who was afraid of doing his job poorly. He’d been her Courier for a year and a half now, and despite him being smart with numbers and diligent with every letter and parcel given to him, he seemed at a loss for trusting his sense of time. He did not have enough experience to trust himself when it came to knowing how far he could travel and in how much time.

Hilda was giving him the experience he needed to trust himself and his own sense of time and speed. It did not always come quickly to new Couriers, but eventually it would. Especially for him, he was a diligent sort, and very bold! Bold men seemed to learn quicker than the timid, and Cassian had learned a good deal in the year and a half since she’d taken him under her wing.

When they finally rode into Derry, the sight of a Courier with his Dalhund Knight surprised no one. People sent so many things by Hound that Derry was quite familiar with them. Hilda had stayed in this town many times before, though it’d been more than two years since the last time she set foot in the Derry Inn.

“The Innkeeper had a daughter when I was here last.” She spoke up as they rode their mare through the small village gate. The road here was flat and well-traveled with many little cottages lining the roadside.

“So?” He asked.

“She would be your age.” She replied with a puff on her pipe.

He turned his head to look at her, and she tilted her nose to the side and exhaled smoke into the air behind them.

“Are you wanting to give me away?” He asked her, making her smile broadly.

“I would never! But little villages like these have young women that don’t see many young men travel through them. You would be wise to keep your wits about you.” She advised him with a smile.

He frowned at her.

“When were you here last?” He asked her.

“Two years. Maybe more.” She replied.

“Then maybe she’s already married, if some other ‘young man’ came through without any wit about him.” He told her, and to that she snorted a laugh in reply.

She took a long drag on her pipe until she felt her nose open up painfully, then leaned her head out far in front of his shoulder. She blew a long thin string of smoke in from of them, wiggling her head until at last there was an ugly heart shaped ring of smoke washing over them as Dolly kept trotting her way down the road.

“Gross.” He fanned away the smoke from his face.

“At least I’m sure she won’t have your awful habits.” He added.

She replied with another of her little laughs.

“Mayhaps.” She told him then.

When they reached the inn, she looked the building over and saw that the welcome sign on the front porch had a collection of bright red tassels hanging from it. Smiling, knowing that they had vacancies, she brought Dolly to a halt before dismounting, then told him to do the same. Soon as his feet were on the ground, she told him to go inside and ask about a room while she took care of Dolly.

She watched him hurry to the front door, grabbing a tassel off the welcome sign as he went, and once he was inside, she began to lead Dolly over to the side of the inn where a small stable had been built where travelers could board their horses.

This inn was large, despite Derry being so small. The stable could hold as many as ten horses, and Hilda counted up a total of six other horses that would be keeping Dolly company tonight. A young boy ran up to greet her, no older than ten, and asked if she was staying one night or many. She explained to him she only needed to stable her horse for just the one night.

Hilda removed a few of their bags from Dolly’s saddle, including Cassian’s satchel and her longsword. Once she had all of their things slug over her shoulders, she thanked the boy who then began to lead Dolly away to a stable of her own.

She walked back around to the front of the inn and pushed her way inside using her shoulder, her hands clinging tightly to the leather straps of their bags and her sheathed weapon.

There she found Cassian standing at the counter with a young woman of like age standing across from him as they spoke. The noise of her entering the foyer caught his ear and she watched as he turned to find her with his eyes, and then she smiled at the expression he was wearing. So, the innkeeper’s daughter was still here after all. She wondered if she was married.

“We have a room, Hilda.” He told her.

“I’m sorry to say, but we didn’t have any rooms with separate beds to give. A group of men arrived earlier today and took all of what we had, but the one I can give you for tonight is still a very nice room! It has the largest bed in the inn!” The young woman told them both as Hilda approached to stand next to Cassian.

“We’re happy just to have a room at all, ma’am.” Cassian told her politely.

Hilda adjusted the straps hanging off her right arm so she could free her hand and pluck her pipe from her mouth.

“A large bed would be nice. This one kicks in his sleep.” She said with a smile, and she didn’t need to watch for his expression to know what sort of face he was making.

She put the pipe back to her mouth and took another long drag. The young woman grinned, looking at Cassian with amusement before asking if they would need dinner for the night or breakfast in the morning. Hilda again pulled the pipe from her mouth to reply.

“Dinner, yes, and can you serve up eggs and toast in the morning?” She asked, her nose already telling her that somewhere in the kitchen there was a pot of something cooking. There were notes of salt and chicken in the air.

“Yes, ma’am, we can! We have a delicious pot of my mother’s chicken soup ready in the kitchen if that’s to your liking?” She replied, confirming what Hilda’s nose had told her.

“Yes, thank you, that’ll be fine.” Cassian took over the speaking, thanking the girl.

Hilda then added that she could bring them soup as soon as they were settled into their room, and with that the young woman led them away and up some stairs to the second floor. Their room was the first door on the left. The young woman unlocked the door and left the key in Cassian’s hand before excusing herself to fetch them dinner.

Once they were alone, he turned to stare at her. She was grinning as she stepped past him to drop their bags onto the bed, which impressed her with its size considering the room itself was not particularly large. She’d stayed in this inn a few times before, but this was the first time she’d used this room.

“I guess you won’t be kicking me tonight, it’s big!” She turned with a big toothy grin. He didn’t look pleased with her, which amused her greatly.

Hilda wrinkled her nose, picking up the renewed scent of food.

A minute or so later someone knocked on their door, and Cassian answered it. Soon as the door opened, she drew in a deep breath through her nose. She picked up notes of carrot, peas, celery, onions, salt, and black pepper along with the expected chicken. Hilda remained seated on the edge of the bed, watching as the young woman entered with a large serving plate. She watched the girl sit the plate down in the center of the room’s only table, a small circle of wood with two stools for chairs. Sitting on the plate were two steaming bowls of soup, along with a loaf of fresh bread with butter to go with it.

“Thank you very much! This smells delicious.” Cassian told the young woman, and she thanked him in return before asking if they would need anything else for the night.

He told her they wouldn’t be needing anything, but Hilda asked what hour breakfast would be made as they needed to set out early the next morning. The young woman’s answer of ‘before sunrise’ satisfied Hilda just fine, and she told her that they would be downstairs by morning to eat and pay their due. Once the girl was gone, Hilda stood up from the bed and walked over to the room’s only window to crack it open.

She tapped the remains of her spent tobacco outside and shut the window back before any more cool air could slip inside. Cassian was already making the table for them both, pulling the stools out from under the table for them to sit, before then taking up the provided knife to begin cutting the bread into thick slices. She slipped her pipe away into her pocket and joined him, looking over the table and into the nearest bowl.

“It smells good.” She told him, seeing the chicken was both white and dark and broken into stringy cuts that floated thickly in the broth like noodles. All the aforementioned vegetables had been neatly chopped and were well soaked and cooked through, tender like warm butter.

“It does.” He replied, taking a seat on his side of the table with a smile.

Hilda joined him, taking up a thick slice of the bread and smearing it with a healthy portion of the butter. A few minutes after they’d both started eating, Cassian broke the silence.

“Why do you keep bringing up that I kick you?” He asked her grumpily.

She snorted another laugh. The soup was very good.

---

With how early they needed to be up to travel, Hilda was quick to settle herself into bed for the night. She’d shrugged off her tunic and leathers, while encouraging Cassian to do the same. Bedtime for them was a familiar ritual that held true no matter where they found a bed.

Hilda would change into her favorite long gown of white linen, complete with floral embroidery around its hem and collar. Its many wooden buttons were polished smooth from use with some of the gown’s stitching needing repair around the shoulders. It had seen much use in her years as a Knight, and she feared the day she’d have to put it to pasture in exchange for something new.

Cassian, meanwhile, dressed himself in something in much better repair. The young man wore a nightgown of his own, but his did not have any floral embroidery on its sleeves. It was distinctly masculine in that it featured nothing decorative at all except for its beige color.

As she checked the window to make sure it was properly shut, Cassian began to extinguish their candles until the only light left to see by was the lantern next to the bed.

“How early will you be waking us?” He asked her.

“When my nose tells me that breakfast is ready.” She told him.

He hummed noncommittally to that, always wishing she would give him proper answers instead of whatever her nose might give instead.

She fished through the pockets of her tunic to find her matches, and once located she took a single one from the bunch and made her way over to the small stove in the room. It was already filled with wood for burning, and there was fresh kindling tucked into a small box beside it. She started a small fire in the oven and then shut the stove and watched as the embers turned to flame.

Once she was satisfied that the fire would burn well through the night for extra warmth, she stood up.

“Bed.” She then told him, not quite spoken as a command, but there was no room for him to question her.

A Knight and Courier of the Hound were not living by their own schedule, but by that of their duty. Waking and sleeping had to be done at their proper times. Cassian didn’t complain, he knew what his responsibilities were, and she did too. Since they only had one bed, pressed into the corner of their small room, she let him settle himself in first before she took a seat on the edge of the bed and extinguished the lantern.

The room fell into darkness, the only light now bleeding through the narrow slats in the small oven door. Orange and yellow flickered faintly across the floorboards but left the rest of the room dark.

She slid under the covers then, quickly wrapping her arms around Cassian as she did so. He protested but didn’t stop her as she rolled him over her so that they’d traded places. Now she was closest to the wall with him closest to the door. It was habit. The bed was always warmest when it was furthest from the wall on a cold night, and Cassian didn’t have any fur to keep him extra warm like Hilda did.

“The girl downstairs didn’t have a ring.” She broke the silence.

“Hilda.” He groaned, and she quietly laughed at her own teasing.

To apologize to him, she pulled him in close to her, hugging him from behind as her long snout fell into the crook of his neck for a snuggle. She held him close, the warmth of her body and the tightness of her grip acting as a salve to soothe the shallow ‘wounds’ of her teasing.

“Would you like me help you sleep?” She asked her after what must have been a few minutes.

He squirmed in her grip, and then a quiet hum came from him. She hummed back, almost in a teasing way as she nuzzled herself deeper into his neck.

Hilda had always been affectionate with her Couriers, it was just a natural thing for Dalhund. They were a friendly lot, like warmth and sunshine wrapped in fur. Most of the time their affection was plain and simple, kindness and smiles given to neighbors and the passerby. However, for a Dalhund that is left to travel with a companion for a long time they can sometimes get lonely for home, and the affection from another person is always a good way to make the homesickness fade.

It was just that every Courier Hilda had served with lacked any sort of taste for Dalhund. There was no hatred or distaste, just a lack of interest. Of ‘that’ sort of interest.

Until Cassian.

She loosened her grip on him and began to stroke him across his chest through the thin fabric of his nightgown. Hilda could feel him squirming with embarrassment. He was almost shivering, like his emotions and energy were too much to contain and had no choice but to bleed out through his pores as goosebumps and tremors.

“Being shy is not a very handsome trait, Cassian.” She scolded him playfully while shifting her body.

She scooted herself away, then rolled him onto his back so that she could crawl on top of him. She was larger than him, her weight settling over his lap and leaving the bed quietly creaking.

“I’m not being shy.” He whispered in his defense.

He’d been a virgin until Hilda deflowered him. She did not have a lot of experience with men, but she was still older and wiser. A Dalhund’s affection could make up for any lack of experience.

She laid herself down on top of him, letting her tall and lean frame overwhelm him so he was fixed in place between her and the bed. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and began to cradle his head next to hers. His arms slipped around her middle until they were lying still and hugging one another.

Hilda knew to go slow, to let his nerves catch up to the wants of the body, so his goosebumps would fall flat and his shivering would stop.

No matter how many times she told him that he could, and should, be bold and forward with his intentions as man, he was still quite soft around women. It was the one duty in which his boldness failed him. She could tell him with any sort of words what she wanted so that he could reach out for her, to grab her, to do as he pleased. But instead, he would worry over this, or worry over that, and left to his own devices he would worry away all the good things he could have had if he’d only spoken louder instead.

Things like Hilda.

She hoped that he would grew to become as bold in private as he was in public. Dalhund men were bold.

She began to gently rock her hips over his.

Cassian was the first man of the plains that had ever returned her affections the right way. If a Dalhund fancied another, you would flirt, but only just a little. If they fancied you back they would return the affection. You would dance back and forth adding a little each time until you found yourself in each other’s arms.

Most plainsmen, be they man or woman, found Dalhund too distasteful to court. They were never rude or foul about it. It was just a matter of taste.

Dalhund men were very tall, and so were their women. Hilda was tall and fit with lean muscle. Her legs could carry her on foot for great distances, and her arms could swing a heavy sword that would wear down even a well-trained plainsman. Most men simply did not lust for a woman much greater than them in height, nor one much greater in strength.

They also did not like her ‘extra’ nipples!

She’d also been told by other Dalhund women that they would complain about fur finding its way between their teeth, which was preposterous as the Dalhund did not shed so easy!

“You’re smothering me.” He told her.

Instead of freeing him, she pulled her arms out from under his head and let her body sag across his. She moved her hands between them and started searching for his buttons. One by one she undid them, all the while Cassian continued to hug her despite having claimed he was being smothered. Hilda didn’t need to unbutton him completely, just the ones that kept her from reaching the piece of him that she wanted most.

The fabric of her gown was loose, and when reached low with her hands it was easy to grab and pull, tugging the linen up her legs until it was bunched up around her middle. Her legs spread, her crotch resting atop his until she no longer needed her hands to help move her gown.

With her nethers exposed, as well as his own, she returned to hugging him. Her arms wrapped back around his head to hold him close as she felt his body stir against hers.

“Am I still smothering you?” She whispered.

“No.” He replied.

She began to rock her hips more firmly. As she slowly ground her body against his she could feel his grip around her middle tighten, as well as his loins begin to stiffen properly. Hilda had already removed all the barriers between them, so as his manhood swelled enough to prod at her inner thigh, she removed one hand from around his head and reach low.

Hilda found him, taking him in her hand and guiding him towards her entrance. She felt him slide within her womanhood, and once she had him sheathed, she removed her hand and put it back around his head.

Her hips continued to rock against his, and then when he finally found his courage, he squeezed her tight and began to return her affection.

With each roll of her hips, he rocked his own upward, and after a few moments of this their movements fell into an easy rhythm. He was hard within her, his fingertips digging through her fur as he tried his best to remain quiet as he worked his body against hers.

She lifted herself up off the bed, freeing his chest from her weight as well as breaking free of his hug. Her hips still ground against his, the young man moving his hands down to her hips, finding purchase on her with a tight grip. Hilda stopped, planting her hands on the bed to his either side, letting her body go still as Cassian did as nature willed him to do.

In the dim light of the room, she could barely see him. A Dalhund’s sight was no better than a man’s in the dead of night, but she could see his face wordlessly making expressions of pleasure, his eyes shut as his hands continued to cling tightly to her.

She began to squeeze him, flexing the muscles between her legs to massage his manhood as he continued to thrust himself inside her. His breathing grew faster, it grew louder, as she watched his silhouette down on the bed below her.

Before he grew too near, she stopped him with a lift of her hips, his length threatening to slip from of her. Cassian, now courageous enough to make love to a woman, finally found some of that boldness Hilda wished he always possessed, and his hands gripped her hips tightly.

He yanked her back down, and she let him pull her hips back to where they’d been, sheathing his manhood back inside her to the base. He tried to hug her, wrapping his arms around her until his hands found the thick base of her tail.

She gasped, lips curling up over her teeth briefly before she warmly growled down at him. He pulled at her tail like a handle and resumed thrusting. As he worked himself into her, she clenched her fists and balled up the sheets in her hands, her teeth tightly clenched.

She growled again, but it wasn’t a sound of warning like a feral mutt’s. The warm growl of a Dalhund in the bedroom was a good sign to hear. Her Cassian was doing what he was supposed to do, as a man should, locking his hands tight around a vulnerable part of his woman’s body. She was stock still, obediently permitting him to rut himself up into her until he was panting loudly with the bed awash with the noise of creaking.

Suddenly, he began to shudder, and she felt him spill his seed inside. The extra warmth flooded and swam through her womanhood, and she felt herself begin to shudder, too. A quiet excitement washed over her from head to toe as she felt a man plant his seed inside her body, a happy growl escaping through her teeth.

He began to sag after a few moments, the grip on her tail going slack.

As he lay panting beneath her, she lowered herself back down and hugged him tightly. She drug her tongue up the side of his neck for an affectionate lick, then rolled the two of them over so that he was on top of her. He was quick to the take, thrusting himself back inside her, Hilda gripping him tightly with her insides as her arms wrapped around his shoulders to hold him.

He was young and virile, and his excitement was enough to keep his manhood hard despite having only just sewed himself inside her. Very good.

Cassian bucked himself into her, and she held him tightly. He resumed his attention on her, thusting eagerly as the bed creaked under them. Hilda held him tightly until he finished, his thrusts coming quickly until at last he shuddered, making a muffled grunt into the fur of her chest.

As his second round of seed flowed into her, she cradled his head between her breasts and wrapped her legs around his waist. She had him enveloped by her in more ways than one, and only when he at last sagged limp against her did she, too, allow herself to relax.

She dipped her nose down to his face and drew her tongue across his cheek.

“Your breath still smells like smoke, Hilda.” He complained, his tolerance for her smokey scent waning as his lust faded as any man’s did after draining his loins in a woman. She wrinkled her nose at him, offended.

“Your seed is in my belly.” She scolded him.

He groaned, but the reminder that she’d let him sew himself in her field was more than enough to quiet his complaints about her smoking habit.

She resumed licking him, ensuring that he was well and truly groomed with her tongue as was the Dalhund way, and then she held him tightly until sleep took him as it usually took a man after lying with a woman. The fairer sex, be they Dalhund or woman, liked to gossip of men. Cassian did not last as long in the bedroom as he should have, and he was too immature to be the finest of husbands, but she would see to it that he grew into one. He had potential, just as he had the potential to one day be a fine Courier of the Hound.

---

The scent of food roused her in the morning.

Her nose had woken first, her snout wrinkling with pleasure as the aroma of eggs, butter, and bacon filled her nostrils. After several instinctive sniffs of the air her eyes popped open, and she was wide awake with the thought of food making her hungry.

At some point in the night Cassian had rolled off her and was now sleeping on his side next to her.

She woke him up by rudely rolling across his body, forcing the wind from his lungs.

“Hilda!” He groaned and buried his head in his pillow as she swung her legs off the bed and to the floor.

She stood, shaking her gown out to straighten the fabric, and then turned around to rip the covers off of the young man.

“It is morning, and we must eat and say goodbye to the innkeeper’s daughter! Melith awaits us.” She told him with a smile.

Hilda watched as Cassian groaned again from his disturbed sleep, but he pulled himself together and crawled out of bed to join her. As much noise as he made when he woke up in the morning, he still picked himself up well. Once he had food in his belly he’d be back to his fine and dutiful self.

He was going to be a good Courier. A husband? Mm, she would need to work on him some more.