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Professors meant well, but some days the constant droning of their voices could put even the most avid student to sleep. Dry dusty texts and long winded dissertations were not what Tobias considered to be the ideal learning environment. He liked to do his learning hands on.

That's why he loved the first day of each school week. It was the botanicals class where they spent half the day examining plants towards the goal of identifying them, regardless of whether they were fresh and alive or desiccated and preserved. In the university setting the rarer plants were usually dead and dried, but there was a fairly new, glass-encased building specifically constructed for the propagation of living specimens.

Today's lesson was a rather curious one. It started out with each student being assigned a group of small, numerically identified pots filled with exotic specimens. Each had been grown from seeds hiked out of the Tribe Lands by one of the few intrepid explorers willing to tread through those unsettled lands.

"Students, you will have the honor of being the first of your class to examine and document some new herbs and flora. The pots are numbered, so I want you to follow the normal protocol when identifying a plant."

They all had sketchbooks, so Tobias marked a page with the corresponding number, and then set to drawing the image of the plant onto the paper. It soon sprang to life from the tip of his pencil, growing to a near likeness by the time he was complete.

He left room on the paper for a brief description; such things as to how he found his senses reacted to the plant. Smell and sight were important, as was taste; though they were constantly warned to use caution with the latter. As one old teacher had stated the problem;

"Knowing what is poisonous and what is not is the first priority of this class. The second priority is knowing how much of a plant can be medicinal and therefore beneficial, and how much will make you sick or even kill you."

There was nothing like blatant honesty to dampen one's enthusiasm for the subject of plant studies. In the end, it had turned out not to be as daunting as might have been first supposed. Berries that were poisonous were less so when fully ripe. Some leaves were fine, but the roots of the same plant might be toxic. Plants gathered in the spring could be more potent than those gathered in the late summer.

No teacher made any student pop a deadly berry in their mouth to see what it tasted like. The students were expected to learn fro m other's mistakes. Tobias for one was glad of that. He liked learning, but he had heard stories about some of the early pioneers into medicinal botany. A few had died grizzly deaths, and he for one wanted to avoid any such demise at any cost.

The professor strode around the room, looking over the drawing, nodding his head and here and there complimenting those with the appropriate skills with the pencil. As he returned to the front he called out;

"Remember, these are all new species to us here. Smell, but do not taste. We are still working out what benefits they might have, and that goes hand in hand with detrimental effects. We still don't know what they are capable of doing, including whether or not they do absolutely nothing. So do not risk putting any part of them into your mouth. I repeat, smell but do not taste. You can put your tongues to use with the next batch that will be coming out."

Once they had finished taking their notes and jotting down the full descriptions of the new plants, the aide came in with a multi-tiered cart full of other specimens. She went from desk to desk, dropping off new pots before emptying her cart and returning to pick up the first batch. It made for a crowded desk, but Tobias went straight to work on the new ones, some of which he recognized as being familiar plants that they had covered before.

Since the rules for these plants were more relaxed, he went straight to work. A few of them were culinary herbs; fragrant plants used in cooking and in the preparation of alcoholic liquors. He knew the various cordials by name; Hasuff, Dolmica and Gressum were the big three. Outside of sipping them in an attempt to derive what plants were used in their manufacture, he shied away from alcohol. He had seen his friends go a little crazy upon drinking in excess and his opinion was that they were not the better for it.

He made rapid work of it, tearing off little leaves and chewing them to determine what they were. He would shift the pots around for easier access, swearing under his breath at the slow pace the aide was taking in collecting the first set. His fingers were a blur as he drew rough sketches and added the pertinent information.

Without looking up he grabbed a leaf and chewed it thoughtfully. He nearly spit it out, for it had an unpleasant taste. He was deciding what to call the flavor when the girl next to him tapped him on the shoulder. "Tobias, did you just eat some of the restricted plants?"

He had been doing his best to ignore her, as had the rest of the class. While she wasn't diseased or ugly in any way, the fact that she was here at the university against t he long standing rules told of the affluence of her family. Her father had to be spending a great deal for his daughter to get an education, one that she could never flaunt or display anywhere around here.

"What? No, I'm trying to finish the second batch so that I can leave early..." He trailed off because he was staring at a small stout herb with thick leaves. He had noted before that it looked much like what some scholars called sage, named after another plant that was said to give the old seers strange visions and abilities. Sage of the typical kind was used mostly in cooking. There was a plant of it on his desk, but it was not from where he had snatched the leaf. He swallowed before he could think better of it.

"Shit! Don't tell on me, or I'll get detention for being so careless!"

"You have to tell them! What if it's poisonous?"

"Then I'd rather suffer for my stupidity than admit to it."

"Don't be an ass!"

"I'm not an ass, I'm a pronghorn."

"You're a stubborn, antler-headed fool is what you are. I'm staying with you until tomorrow morning. By then, any side effects will have shown themselves and maybe you'll be lucky enough to escape any real harm."

"I don't need a babysitter nor some female in my room!"

"Then I'll have no choice but to tell the professor!"

He was going to say more, but the aide came plodding along and removed the exotics from his desk. The girl next to him, a spritely otter, acted as if to say something to the aide. He put his finger to his lips.

When the aide was gone, he leaned over to her. "Fine. We can study all night since I don't have an early class tomorrow. That plant was bitter tasting, but it didn't have the usual tingling on the tongue that poisons normally elicit. I think I'll be fine. Besides, do you really think that they would expose us to something deadly?"

"They might if they didn't know it was deadly. I think that they use us to do some of their leg work."

"Well, they are old and decrepit. Of course, they get the credit for the discoveries while we slave away in anonymity. "

She giggled and punched his shoulder. He frowned a little at the liberty she took in hitting him and turned back to his plants. The taste in his mouth was lingering. It was almost metallic; like having a spoon in there for too long. It definitely wasn't anything anyone would ever use in cooking.

After class he was feeling a little funny, but he convinced himself that it was all mental. His stomach didn't hurt, his fingers didn't tingle, and his head seemed exceptionally clear. And yet he had a feeling of unease. He wished he hadn't been so stupid as to grab the wrong specimen. Those were the kind of mistakes that could get you killed, and if not killed, expelled from school for incompetence.

The otter girl slipped out of the shadows and fell in step with him. "How are you feeling?"

He frowned, having hoped she would forget about their deal. "Fine. I'm just a little nervous about having done something so foolish. Thanks for not telling on me."

"You're welcome. But you're stuck with me until tomorrow morning."

"So you said. I think I'll be fine, but it might be nice to have a study partner for once," he said, trying to put a positive spin his predicament.

"For once? I've seen any number of people trying to get you to study with them."

"I take my education seriously. They either wanted help with their own problems or they wanted to do something different."

"Different?"

"You know, sex. I've got nothing against it, but there is a time and place for everything. I figure I don't have to worry about you. You seem like you're smart enough and you've got a beau."

"Thanks! Every girl wants to be known for being a great student."

"You're welcome!"

She stopped for a moment and watched him walk on. Her brain was trying to tell if he was serious or just dense. She decided she would find out later. Her feet nearly skipped as she hurried to catch back up.

His room was a cluttered mess of books, journals and his own collected specimens of plant life, including a few species of seaweed that had come in snagged on the hulls of foreign sailing ships. He was on the route to being an old teacher at an early age. It almost made her turn around and leave. But otters were persistent when they wanted something. If he had not stupidly eaten that leaf, she would never have gotten in here in the first place. Tobias wasn't a complete bookworm, but he tended to have on blinders when it came to who was interested in him.

He cleared off a space for her to sit, but she shifted the piles of stuff until his entire bed was cleared. "How do you sleep in here?"

"I manage."

"So I assumed. Well, if we're going to study, I figured that we might as do it side by side. That way we can look over each other's notes."

"Sure." He stood up to move over and nearly lost his balance. She stuck out a steadying arm, latching onto his.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, just a little dizzy for some reason."

"That plant?"

"Maybe, but it's nothing major."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Hey, why did you break up with Raul?"

"I didn't say anything about that to you!?"

"You didn't? Then why did I say that? I'm sorry."

"But I did."

"You did what?"

"I did break up with him."

"But you just said..."

"I know what I said. I never told you I broke up with him. We split up this morning and I haven't told anyone."

He was holding his head with his free paw. She was holding the other.

"Well, he is a philandering twit," he said with a frown.

"Yes, that's what I called him. How did you know that?"

"And if he wants to hang out with the rat-whores down by the wharf, then he can go and collect every disease those filthy girls carry."

"Uh, Tobias, you're scaring me."

"There are better looking guys out there, smarter ones too. Take Tobias for example."

He stopped and pulled from her grip. "What about me?"

She was turning red in the cheeks."How can you know what I said? You weren't there, were you?"

"No, and yet I feel as though I was. God, this is weird."

"You don't suppose it was that plant, do you?"

"How could a plant let me know what you were thinking?"

"I don't know. What am I thinking now?"

He concentrated. "I don't know. I can't see anything."

She held his hand. "Are you sure?"

He tensed up. "I see you looking at me. I can see myself through your eyes. This is freaking me out."

Instead of letting go, she held on even more tightly. "And what am I thinking?"

His cheeks took their turn in filling with blood. "Uhhhhhhhhhh."

"Yes?"

"Do you really want to get it on right here and now?"

She smiled. "You know, I think that plant might be the saving grace for the male gender. Ladies have to try pretty hard sometimes to get noticed."

He felt a rise in his trousers. "You're seriously interested in me?" The feeling was very unfamiliar to him.

She let go of his hand and stood. Her dress slipped off of her shoulder and dropped to the floor. "Maybe. Are you interested in me?"

He wasn't certain if the emotion he was feeling was his own or the lingering echo of what he sensed inside her. He felt a heat in his crotch that wasn't natural and a thick feeling of overwhelming attraction that nearly blew out his senses. He liked her, but he hadn't known that he _liked _her in that way.

His pants had a bulge that was more telling than any words he could ever find. He nodded and stood as well, slipping his shirt over his head and wrestling to get it over his horns. His pants fought a similar problem, only there was merely a single horn for them to hang up on.

Even as he got undressed, the feeling inside was fading a little. It returned with a vengeance when she took a hold of his paw again. Everything that she was feeling was coursing though his mind and racing through his veins. It was like he was melded with her, body, mind and soul. If this was on account of the plant, then it had qualities that definitely needed further study.

He went straight to work, pushing her down on his bed and setting to exploring her body. She was a wiry framed little goddess, and as he ran his mouth over her various parts, he could feel t he effect through their link. It didn't take long for him to catch on that what made her feel good made him feel good. It proved to be an overpowering and massively wild experience for both of them.

Poor Tobias didn't know where her pleasure stopped and his started. The longer he remained in contact with her, the more his system became overloaded. He soon lost himself in everything she was experiencing. It was like he was no longer himself, but merely a ghost; a puppet who was performing the act while simultaneously being the recipient of it.

Once they started, the pleasure was so great that his body refused to let it stop. He was in her mind, feeling the pulses of physical contact that washed over her like the storm waves of winter. He was in fear of drowning in that ocean; her emotions were running deep and strong just like the undercurrents along the rocky shore. Whatever this plant was, it was one hell of a ride for an inexperienced person.

He had just enough clarity to wonder if the Tribesmen even used it for anything. He had to think that the answer was no - they didn't, for what other chore would ever get done when they had something as potent as this to experience?

Hours later two very exhausted students lay panting on the bed. Tobias found that his cock was very sore. His friend was similarly encumbered. They were both extremely raw from their shared experience.

"Tobias?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember which plant that was?"

"I think so, why?"

"In a few days when I recover, I want to do this again!"

"Are you crazy? I feel like I've been screwing a stone troll!" With all of the exertion of sexual energy and the fading of the connection, Tobias we feeling more himself. If the feelings faded any more, he was going to find himself feeling very embarrassed by this whole, overtly sexual event.

"A what?"

He realized that his words were not what he meant them to be. "I meant to say that my cock is so chafed that I might very well have been making out with s stone troll."

"Oh. I get what you were trying to say. I thought for a moment that you were insulting me."

"Oh no! Are you kidding? That was the most extreme... anything that I have ever done in my life!" He was also thinking that it was p robably going to be something that he regretted.

"Yeah, it was pretty incredible, wasn't it?"

"A little too much so I think. I don't see how that can ever be topped."

"You could steal a little more of that plant, couldn't you?"

"I could, but when would it stop?"

"Who would want to ever stop? That was glorious!"

"My point. I think you could get sucked into this quite easily and never come back out. I don't like being that out of control."

"You're a spoil sport, you know that?"

"Maybe, but I'll be a spoil sport with my mind still intact. I'm not saying that this wasn't fun, for fun is hardly the word to describe it. But seriously, where can we go from here? I'm not even sure that regular sex will even cut it after that."

She sobered up a little. "I guess I see your point, but isn't that even more of a reason to get more of the plant?"

"No it's not. But I'll tell you what. Give ourselves a few days to recover, and I'll see if I learned anything from the experience to go at it without the enhancement. You can have your sensations, and I'll have mine. It might not be as overwhelming but maybe we'll be lucky enough to have it be almost as satisfying."

"Hmm. I'll take you up on that offer. For now though, I don't think I can move."

"Me either."

She rolled over and curled up next to him. "I don't have early class in the morning either. Let's hope no one bothers us until at least noon."

No one did. Tobias refrained from succumbing to the temptation of stealing one of those plants for over a week. When he did, he was disappointed when the effect didn't repeat itself. So did the girl They tried repeatedly until they nearly killed the plant, but the experience didn't have the courage to show its face again. In the end, he found that he appreciated that fact. He couldn't deny the pleasure he had suffered through, but his studies would have suffered even more had they continued unabated.

It wasn't until the next semester that he learned about conjunctive poisons. Mixing several chemicals or plant extracts could compound the effect on just one of the ingredients or even have an effect that wasn't there before. It dawned on him in the middle of the lesson that he had taken bites of some other plants; plants that might be innocuous alone might have unknown properties when combined with others. It got him thinking back to that one, unforgettable night.

He didn't like to lose control, but oh, there was such temptation and promise in that plant. It was going to be hard not telling anyone about his sudden inspiration. He was pretty sure that it might very well be the downfall of everyone he knew if he figured out the perfect combination. He wasn't prepared for that much moral responsibility.