{"sf1_id":867754,"sf2_id":null,"title":"The Forest of the Noonday Sun","author":"Aux Chiens","words":12822,"posted_at":"2015-05-31T08:21:00.000Z","tags":["Anal","Bligh","Cervine","Deer","Elk","Forcedshifting","Human","Impregnation","M/M","M/M/M","Male","Mind erasure","Musk","Oral","Piss","Pregnancy","Pregnant","Stag","Transformation","Watersports","body","fluids","gross","hart","mpreg","strange","urine","weird"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/867754-the-forest-of-the-noonday-sun","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/867754","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=867754\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"","content":"The Forest of\nthe Noonday Sun\n           Why, let the stricken deer go weep,\nThe hart ungallèd\nplay;\nFor some must\nwatch, while some must sleep:\nSo runs the world\naway._________ William\nShakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene\nii            West of Asheville the Appalachians\nrise wild, cutting and jagged amidst luxuriant, thickly wooded forests, and on\neither side of the highway out that way - headed to Tennessee up into the\ndismal stretches of the Virginian panhandle toward the coalfields of West\nVirginia - they seem to gore the sky, great granite tusks from an unthinkable\nbeast long dead in epochs unfathomable to man.\n            It always made James\nMcCall feel small, even someone like he, mountain-born and doomed to\nmountain-die...small, for the mountains are beautiful but they exact something\nfrom you when you see them. They demand a price - a cost and an obeisance for\ngazing upon their grandeur. Older than you, more patient than you - for you, as\nJames was that day, are a mere tourist upon the Earth: their Earth. And they,\nunlike you, have learned to wait.            Yet there he was - down the\nhighway he drove, the comforting drone of his Wrangler's engine and the fresh\nAutumn air. It was not too cold, not yet, that precious frigidity of the\nhighlands in the Fall. Past him, in a continuous blur, were the mountains,\ncrowned and feathered with incandescence, like the lower slopes had burst\naflame, phoenix-like, as a last gasp before the winter.            A few days ago he was in\nFlorida, and it was still hot down there. First week of October and it was a\ntotally different climate, different place, mentally and geographically...he\nhated it; he would never go back. The only reason he was there at all was\nbecause his grandmother, Mamaw, had died, at her age having had quite enough of\nthe unpredictable North Carolina winters and moved from Durham to Saint\nPetersburg for more predictable Florida winters instead - eight years later\nlast Tuesday she was dead in her sleep, Papaw sleeping in death three years\nbefore her and waiting on her in Heaven. And that little house she lived in,\nwith its ugly Norfolk Island pine out front, in was emptied by his relatives -\nall his cousins, aunts, uncles, all to see this woman get buried in a state she\nwas not born in.\n            But his family was always like that: rootless,\nshiftless, going wherever the wind took them.            Before he left Florida - for\ngood, he vowed - he had the Wrangler looked at by a guy in Tampa who had an\naccent he heard nowhere else in Florida and nowhere else for several states\nnorthward. He'd tuned his Jeep so it ran like he didn't believe, better than it\nhad in years.            \"Gonna take it out\ncamping,\" James'd said to him, idle chatter.            \"Better be careful up\nyonder,\" the mechanic said, tossing James his keys back, a skewed grin on\nhis face. \"Ain't tellin what yew find in em woods.\"             And then he grinned - and\nJames swore his teeth were way too sharp, like an animal's fangs...            He caught himself shuddering\nat the memory - he was glad he was out of Florida, he was glad he was back in\nhis state, even several hours from Charlotte he was still, here, home.            This trip was to clear his\nhead of the whole ordeal, and it was an ordeal, of being in Florida, seeing\npeople in his family he never cared for, burying his grandmother, the\noppressive heat even in the midst of the Fall down there - and that mechanic\nwho had been so nice and excellent with his car until he'd smiled with those\nawful, awful teeth... But enough of that shit, all of it - he was here, he was\ngoing to have fun, and do what he loved doing most: hunting for hidden things.\n            James had the look of a happy hippy, which he\nhad, after all, cultivated with a full beard and moustache and long,\nnear-straight, and near to his shoulders dark brown hair tucked into a woolen\ncap for the weather. He was slender, he had mother's dark eyes and dark brown hair. For this\ntrip he wore a flannel, loose on him, and an undershirt, some jeans, and boots,\nnothing showy, only worn to get the job done.            The drive took him up, further\nand further into the mountains. The narrow road was bracketed by a thin gravel\nsiding and past that the trees loomed. It was old growth, trees that had been\nalive when his White ancestors came to these shores - and the forest itself was\nfar, far older than that. The Appalachian slopes had been dark with forests since\nsome dim antediluvian age...yet now it was sliced up, cut down, crisscrossed by\nroads and interstates. But these were paltry ropes stretched across a\nslumbering giant - and with asphalt dissolving into chunks into the gravel,\ngrass growing through in tufts, it seemed the ropes were fraying: the giant\nslept uneasy.            And here he was, driving up\nthe slopes. The peaks above grew jagged, ancient rock finally worn to see the\nair. The trees loomed as ancient relics, remnants from an unremembered past - everything\nas the latest incarnation of an unbroken strand of life, things that had grown\nand crawled and ran on this land, birthing and dying in eons long before\nhumanity. The Sun itself, starting to wane in the late afternoon, seemed to\nwobble unsteady in the sky, and shine too bright, then not bright enough...            ...and then he would blink -\nhard, twice - and back to normal it came.            He shook his head - driving\nfatigue, highway hypnosis, how long had he been on the road, anyway? Didn't\nmatter - he'd sleep good tonight.            The approach to where he was\nheaded - into Macon County through the town of Franklin, where an elderly great\nuncle of his had shot a man over a pittance owed to him for moonshine - was\neasy enough, and not soon after he was there, his destination: Nantahala\nNational Forest.            As he slowed down and drove\nthrough the winding roads and hills to the campsite he was struck, as one is\nstruck hard like a blow to the head, with the unfolding and unending\nkaleidoscope of Autumnal colors, all around him, what he had seen from the road\nnow achingly intense and vivid enveloping his vision.            He checked in at the ranger\nstation, and the woman he spoke with - plump, glasses, called him honey\n- had given him an odd look when he mentioned which campsite he was headed to.            \"Ain't nobody been up\nthere for years and years,\" she said. \"We had to shut it down on\naccount of nobody was going up that way.\"            James furrowed his eyebrows at\nher, but he hid a smile. \"Why? That don't seem right.\" But he knew\nfull well why.            \"People would come up\nthere and say couldn't nobody get no--\" And then she paused, and laughed to\nherself, shaking her head. \"Couldn't nobody get no sleep, they'd be tellin\nus they couldn't sleep and having bad dreams and all this... \" She\npaused, and the hum and rattle of James' waiting Wrangler seemed uncomfortably\nloud in the sudden silence.            James nodded at her.\n\"Gotta say - seems a little weird, but - I'll be fine.\"            The woman tilted her head\naway, conceding the point. \"You know how to get into contact with a ranger\nif ya have any trouble now.\"            \"I do indeed.\"            Then with a final smile, she\nmotioned off to the distant campsite: \"Well lemme know how your night is,\ny'hear?\"            \"I will indeed,\nma'am.\"            And with that, he drove on.            He made it at last to where he\nwould be spending the night, the old campsite, that had been leveled off next\nto a creek. Overgrown now, reedy saplings as tall as he was springing up in the\nshadows of the trees, but still with enough room to set up his tent.             As soon as he dropped out of\nhis Wrangler, stretching, his muscles too taut from the long car ride... he\nbreathed in the air. He had experienced it, like the view, from a distance -\nbut now, looking about him, the rolling hills leading exquisitely to a mountain\nbefore him, the gentle babble of the creek, the felt it, he felt the air\nactually clean his lungs.            \"Alright--\" he\nmurmured with satisfaction.            It took him no time at all to\nfetch his tent, set down his thermos and his camera, and dig into the bear-proof\ncanister which held his dinner, breakfast, and lunch for the next day and a\nhalf - all sandwiches, ham and mustard - he would eat a quick snack before he\ncould set up the tent and write in his journal. He ate light when he was\nworking, what he considered his real line of work - why he was here.            The Sun was wavering, and its\nsetting would start soon, the Autumn evening would be coming on and turn even\ncolder, he would lose daylight, and he needed to write.            He opened his journal, the pen\nin the spiral spine ready for him - and turned to where he had left off.            The last time he had been able\nto take off work - call center, Wells Fargo, unglamorous but paid the bills and\nleft him enough to travel and drink decently on - he had gone to the other end\nof North Carolina, in the Great Dismal Swamp, searching for ghosts there, and\nhe had seen strange lights that seemed to float on the cypresses but nothing\nconcrete, nothing that he could turn in as proof of the paranormal or\nsupernatural. This - and magic and witchcraft and cryptids, spooks that went\nbump in the night, so the cliché went - he took on as articles of faith, but\nwhich others, outside of the fringes on the Internet, needed convincing.\n            So convince them, he would. He was determined\nto find something groundbreaking, shocking, incontrovertible - if not this trip\nthen another, and another, he would never give up the search.            He paused, a fleeting moment,\nas he remembered that mechanic's face, his grin, those teeth. \n            Might Bligh - might he have been some\nsort of cryptid? Something that walked amongst the teeming crowd in Tampa\nunnoticed, in a masquerade with humanity? And if so - what was he? Normal\nenough to be a fucking mechanic, but--?            What if he didn't have to\nhaunt strange and remote places to find what he was looking for? What if\nthey were all around him, all around everyone, and no one, least of all he,\nactually knew?            He hesitated - he thought to\nmake a note about it but shook his head to himself, not at the moment, he had\nto focus on where he was now.            Up here on this particular\ncampsite was a popular urban legend which was based in fact: it was never used\nbecause campers would feel an unease when they slept here, often reported\nnightmares and strange visions and a general feeling that they shouldn't be\nthere at all, people quit going there to the point that the office in Franklin\nended up closing it, reopening only just two years ago from an unexpected\nbudget boost.            That was the rumor anyway -\nthe woman at the ranger station had repeated it because she had probably heard\nit enough times. It seemed silly, not to say actually theatrical, the stuff of\ncampfire lore, and yet it was all true - and seeing where James was now, a\nplace almost palpably lonely and untouched...            James stayed his pen - he\nglanced up and around him, seated where he was next to his tent. It was true,\nhe felt like an intruder here, an interloper... he had suspected the feeling -\nthat feeling of unbelonging, if such a word for such an abstract emotion\neven existed - that others felt was a classic symptom of being haunted, but he\nhad only read it, academically, he had no experience with it.            Now he did.            He took a deep breath - trying\nto stave off the creep, wordless, that he did not belong there...when his eyes\ndrifted to the treeline, the old campsite giving way to a wall of woods: dark\nand thick, shadows swallowing up the nearby creek. If he was the interloper, he\nwas gonna see just what he was interloping into.            In the early evening light the\nforest was already dusky, a place of silhouettes and near-stillness: there was\nthe burble of the creek, the whooping wail of the mourning dove, the rustle of\nan unseen animal on its blind path up the hills, into the mountains that now\nJames could not see for the towering trees.            To accompany the feeling of -\nhow else to describe it, perhaps, wrongness, unwarranted and inchoate solitude,\nthe feeling that he was being watched, there was an odd fixation - to\nstare back, to watch the shadows and the stillness in the forest. \n            For what, he did not know: but that was why he\nwas out here, after all, to find out what. His camera with him, he began to\nwalk.            He followed the old path, easy\nat first, but then higher - how long, he couldn't be sure. The forest was all\naround him, massive hickory trees whose trunks had fattened mightily over\nuntold years and decades, the colors of the forest swirling around him,\ncrunching underfoot and rattling where the bunches were still affixed to\nbranches high above. The sunlight, now dying fast, haloed the canopy above,\nrich red light pouring in shafts all the way down to the forest floor.            He was flushed by the time\nhe'd nearly reached the next crest, sweat trickling down his back and sticking\nhis flannel to his skin, woolen cap hot on his head, camera in hand. He huffed,\nbreathing deep of the air, grinning at the dimming light. The eerie feeling was\nall around him, watched and watchful, but now it made him smile, then grin,\nthen laugh, at how immersively spooky these October woods were.            \"That - that's\nsome good shit.\"            Dusk would be coming soon, and\nhe was tired, still not altogether whole from the long trip here, there was no\nsense in freaking himself out so soon and so suddenly. Eight years at this, at\nleast seriously - at twenty-seven he should have known better and have been a\nlittle more jaded, but the thrill was always fresh.            Twilight was all around him\nnow, lovely violent sky above, sunlight dimming to thin shafts through the\ndarkening forest...with it came a flit of worry about getting back down to the\ncampsite before night fell at last. Yet as the thought hit him it was driven\naway: he smelled something. Something strange.            He inhaled deeply his nose -\nand his mouth, he swore - was assaulted by a plethora of smells, the acrid\nredolence of the Autumn season, all of it, woodsmoke and crisp air and spices,\nthe faint whiff of hazelnut and the juice of the pumpkin, what one tackily\nassociates with the Samhain season in the commercialized vivified zombie of the\nEuropean's pagan roots.\n            He took in several breaths of it, hypnotized.\n            Where was the smell coming from?            ...woodsmoke, burnt hickory, the\npoetic odor of the campfire, and spices, so many spices, that peppered the air\n- dark smells, smells of the pagan, the smells of the witch's coven and the\nHalloween ghost story.            The hill he was on, he saw\nnow, was not quite a hill: its sides were too sharp, and it curved around in a\nmost unnatural fashion, still clear even with a hundred years of trees growing\nupon it. \n            He hustled up the final few steps, now with the\nsunset catching strange lights swooping up the far edge as he came to the\ncrest, dropping down low to avoid being seen by - wait - what was that? \n            There was a wide circular mound, the center\nhollowed out, and in the hollow there was...            ...his eyes adjusted to the\ndark, where, blurry, becoming clearer, there looked to be in the very center of\nthe lull a herd of deer around a smooth stone, bonfire burning bright at its\nbase.\n            Or, maybe, no, that wasn't it, it was a circle\nof people wearing animal masks.            But no - not that, either. \n            What - what was he seeing?            He focused on one of these\nnot-deer, amongst his other five fellows, and saw how his muscles bunched and\nshifted in ways no animal should move...it rose, standing up, and in the\nflickering firelight James saw it had hands - four-fingered, thick and\ngnarled, and tipped in short, curving, sharpened nails, not like a hand at all\nbut a clawed hoof, surrounded by fur that crept up to its shoulders,\nwhich were shaggy with the same.            Almost upright did it lumber,\nproportions wrong for an deer and twice as wrong for a human - limbs all the\nwrong lengths, bushy hoof-like feet where the toned, muscled, furry legs\nterminated, below a small, tufted tail.         Between the hirsute head and\nshoulders and the bestial bottom, was smooth, human-like flesh, crisscrossed\nwith veiny, sinewy muscles, a gymnast's body, were it a man. A muzzled face\ntwisted down as it stood higher, crowned by - yes, there was no mistaking it\nnow - by antlers, magnificently wide, like bone, or ivory, stretching from\neither side of his head.            In the firelight the beast\ncast a long, uncanny shadow, drawn out to monstrous proportions up the side of\nthe hill, flickering and darting as the fire popped and crackled.            \"Oh--\" James murmured\ninto the night. \"Oh - oh my god--!\"            For so how long - for so, so\nlong - James had been chasing this.            This.            Proof, empirical, impossible\nto disprove, that cryptids were real, that all the weirdness - the ghosts, the\nunexplained events, the people who vanished without a trace - that it was real,\nthat the world we lived in was a façade for something deeper and darker.            \"Jesus--\" he\nwhispered. \"Jesus - Christ.\"            He watched them, he watched\nthis - this herd of creatures, not quite deer, but not quite human, yet\nsomething overlapping all three, something truly monstrous, but neither twisted\nnor ugly but transcendent in a beauty so pure it was, like the strange way\ntheir bodies seemed to be made, a deformity, unto itself.            For James, all the abnormal,\nthe supernatural, paranormal, lived behind glass: visible only through a spotty\nvideo or blurry photograph, on the farthest shore of a gulf dividing the world\nof the quotidian, the mundane.            This was\nhis world, this was his quest - and here it was, here, he had succeeded.            He was watching it - these\nstrange creatures moving, moving rhythmically, around the fire, the bonfire\nthat danced impious near the stone - he was watching it happen for him,\nright in front of his eyes.            \"Oh - fuck--!\"            This was it, this was his big\nbreak, nobody would ever laugh at him or question his sanity or think he was\nwasting his time, ever again. \n            Proof - he had it! \n            All he had to do was take pictures, stalk these\ncreatures close, but careful, so careful, not to disturb them, as they circled\nround their fire, sometimes on all fours and sometimes upright, circling -\ncircling, circling, around the bonfire that was lit by the smooth stone.            He stood watching them, again,\nhaving taken only a few steps forward.            Round and round they went -\nthe six of them, silent, trotting and then walking upright in a rhythmic\npattern that James detected at once... these were no mere cryptids, no random\nweird animals, these seemed to be - intelligent.            \"Wha--?\"            No sooner had he thought it,\nand said it, then the group of not-deer stopped - stopped and rose, all of\nthem, their hairy muzzles thrown back, bellowing into the night.            James' bowels turned to ice at\nthe sound - colder, colder than the night already, chill and gripping in the\nAppalachian October.            The camera was still in hand\nbut he had yet to take any pictures, too distracted, too agitated, but at the\nsound they made he stifled a cry of fear, and dropped it, to the ground - the\nsound of the lens cracking rang out, a shattering echo.            The sound had been the most\neldritch noise he had ever heard another animal in his entire life make - it\ncontained within it something so primally mournful, sorrowful, grieving, an\nineffable, cosmic sadness...a call, James realized, though he could not\nknow why, to one recently passed on.            The mere vibrations it made in\nthe air, perfumed with the smells of what he now realized was being burnt in\nthe fire, the smells of Autumn that engorged his nose and filled his head with\nstrange and fleeting synesthesia - the mere act of it hitting his ears made\nJames want to cry, to mourn, to grieve with these misshapen half-human things\nthat he had, not minutes ago, just discovered.            James' breaths were heavy, his\nbody immobile and paralyzed with fear, as he watched - out from the crawling\nshadows of the centuries-old hickories a new beast appeared, alike the others\nin visage but obviously older, shaggier, his movements were slow and patient -\nin his mouth was carried an object, and James strained to see what it was...            ... a woven, complicated thing,\nof rustic craftsmanship, made of wood, a nest, nearly, of briars, and laden\nwith a great pile of hazelnuts inside a small hollow in the middle from which\narose a single large antler-point, the whole of it wrapped with maple leaves.            This beast, the not-deer, held\nthis thing, which the others bowed to, as though in a fetish-devotion - and\nthen, out of his mouth, dropped it into the fire.            A great crackling hiss\nerupted, sparks flew from the embers of the fire, and out poured from it a vast\ncloud of dark, obscuring smoke, a pillar billowing up into the starlit sky.            His hands shook - and then his\nbody shook, more than mere shiver from the cold - something was wrong, James\ncould feel it, something was very wrong, he was suddenly and with no warning at\nall torn into by dread, a sensation that everything he saw, felt, smelt, was\nsome wrenching nightmare that leered at him in the waking world.            He tried to step back - but\nhis foot caught the fallen camera, and down he came, hard on his ass, to the\nground.            He shouted out in pain, and\nlike the sound of his lens breaking it echoed, over the sound of oncoming\nnight, cutting into the final knell of a new, lowing cry of the creatures some\ndistance before him.            They stopped - all of them,\nall six and their elder too, looked at him, turned their cervid faces and looked\nat him.            In the firelight, their\neyeshine glowed ghoulishly, pairs of eyes fixed on him in the half-lit\ndarkness.            Panic set in - he remembered\nthe time he was in Yellowstone, hunting Bigfoot, and there was a bear roaming\nnear his tent and he was certain he was going to be mauled, and the same fear,\nfight-or-flight, crashed into him.            He scrambled up - and slipped\nagain, faceplanting to the cold grass.            There was a noise behind him,\nall seven of them, a bugle that started, first with one, then another, then a\nthird, by and by until all of them were making the noise together - a clarion,\nan announcement.            James rose, slowly, never more\nbewildered in his life - his mind raced. \n            What were these things? Stags - deer -\nprehistoric creatures, evolved into more modern shapes? Hybrids, with humans - somehow?\nAnd what he had just witnessed... a ceremony, a ritual...            ... and then the wind turned, a\nrattling breath through the canopy, and the dark smoke twisted and expanded,\nrushing toward him - James was suddenly in thick fog, fumes burning his eyes -\nthe shapes around him soon reduced to wraithlike figures, attenuated, ghostly.            He held up his shirtsleeve,\ntrying to cover his face, but not before he swallowed a mouthful of smoke,\nburning down into his lungs, and he gave a rough gasp, futile and sputtering.\nHe hacked, the reflexive inhale burning his throat and sending him into a\ncoughing fit, on his knees in the grass, eyes ablaze - he staggered to his\nfeet, certain the ghostly figures in the clearing were all staring directly at\nhim, animal eyes luminous in even through the smoke, like spotlights fixed on\nhim.            He stumbled away from the\nclearing and the stone and the fire and those things, and ran - eyes burning so\nhe could hardly see, ears hearing nothing but his own hammering heartbeat and\nthe rasp of his breath, every motion around him in this fearful blind delirium\nthinking the beasts were giving chase, looming, out of the dark, in the smoke\njust behind him...\n            Eventually his terror spent itself, leaving him\npanting and drenched in cold sweat, aware of the dull ache of his muscles from\nthe sudden expenditure. His breath was loud in the cold, a desperate pant that\nseemed like it must be audible across the entire forest, one that he couldn't\nbegin to control.            He looked about him.\n            There was nothing coming after him.            The shadows were just of\ntrees, the rustling was just the wind.            A look over his shoulder saw\nno deer-people, the fire put out, the smoke vanished into the night - where had\nit all gone?            No - he was still coughing,\nthat smoke was certainly in his lungs and had scorched them because he had\nbreathed in too much... that, all of it, had been no illusion, no drunk backwoods\nhayseeds dressed in animal masks.            That had been - that had been--            He didn't know what it\nhad been.            He hardly knew how he found\nthe campsite again, and he was dazed and staggering in the aftermath - flesh\nnear crawling off his body in shivering tremors. It was all he had in him to\nclamber in the driver's seat of his Wrangler, amidst the broken vagaries of\ntrying to leave, to go to a hospital because he could barely breathe, wheezing,\nstraining, his lungs still feeling as though the peculiar smoke had blackened\nit.            There was a vain struggle for\nhis key - keys - where were his keys?            But the strain was at least\ntoo much - he collapsed onto the steering wheel, unconscious.\n            Unconscious - but still able to dream.            The dream was fitful - there\nhe was alone, a dirt path, he could smell the fresh Autumn rain. And then he\nlooked up - there was his grandmother, newly dead, turning to him in a hilly\ncemetery somewhere that the dirt path led to, mountains beyond it full of mist\nand fog. She was shaking her head - slowly, disapprovingly, knowingly, as if\nhe, James, had failed her, had failed her as her grandson. Shapes loomed from\nthe trees, tombstones shifting seamlessly into forest, clawed hands and hooved\nfeet in disarray, shapes neither human nor animal climbing from the forest to\nsurround him. He wanted to cry out, to demand what was happening, and ask where\nhe was, but a dread welled up and roared inside his still-dreaming skull - the\nfaint unease when he was awake was now all-consuming, it was so potent and\ndrilling that he surely would die of it: the elk-creatures meeting his gaze\nfinally, eyes brilliant yellow and boring into his skull.            Lucidity came back to him,\nslowly, very slowly, fragmentary pieces of awakening, and James tore his way\nback to waking like surfacing from a lake, dreams shattered into fragments of\nincoherent sensation.            It was still dark outside -\nhow many hours had he passed out for? And why-?            His drowsy thoughts were\ndestroyed in his own head as he felt something between his legs, under his ass.            Something gelatinous. Something\nslimy.            He thought for a second that\nhe'd eaten some bad food, as if the sandwiches he had picked had spoilt unaware\nto him, and he shit himself in the night - he dry-heaved in immediate\nrevulsion, and he moved, gingerly, to open the driver's side door, too-aware of\nthe liquescent mess in his underwear every time he moved.            But then the smell hit him.            It was a heavy, numinously\nwoodsy scent, blossoming thickly in the too-humid air inside his Jeep. It\nstirred the still-forming memories of last night, the bizarre ritual on the\nhill, the...things - the things he'd seen, fuller, more realized, than the paltry\nfaintness of the scents through the air only some hours ago.            His thighs were wet with the\nstuff, leaking in fluid trails from his ass, soaking through his underwear, and\nhe unzipped his jeans to swipe his fingers through it, and bring it to his\nnose, sniffing.            Rich - amniotic - musk,\nalmost rancid, in its animal reek...            ... before his sleep-fuzzy brain\ncould catch up to what his body was doing he'd opened his mouth, tongue swiping\nacross his slimy fingers. The flavor burst over his tongue, a thousand times\nmore potent, and he groaned, shoving his fingers in his mouth, his tongue\nlaving over them in a needfulness he had never felt before, as though he were a\nnewborn discovering milk for the first time.            His mind went blank - utterly,\ncompletely blank. There was nothing in his head, nothing rational - for an\ninstant, nothing human.            He did not know how he fell\nout of his Wrangler, how he crawled away from it, how he found himself facedown\non the ground, ass in the air, legs tangled in his sodden underwear, nearly\nclawing his skin in his eagerness.            His consciousness, robbed with\nthe first thunderstrike of the taste, the first taste of himself, returned, slowly, his surroundings melding back into his\nawareness - the forest, a newly appeared Moon shining down on him, strange\nprints all around his Jeep, hand and hoof, flattened into the grass... the airish\nbreezes that blew from nowhere...            ... he found a messy tendril of\nslime from the furrow of his ass and slurped it up, moaning around his fingers,\ndrooling as he rutted back against his other hand, two fingers jammed to the\nknuckle in his slick, dripping ass.            There were - he felt it, he\nfelt it almost painfully - bloated swells inside him, a pair aching glands just\nbehind his asshole, like he'd grown new prostates, and when he curled his\nfingers around their bulk and squeezed they splat hot musk squirting across his\nknuckles, drooling down his balls.            Some rational part of his mind\ntelling him this wasn't normal, this was something serious and frankly terrible\n- that he should leave, that he could still get in his Wrangler, even with his\nass squelching on the seat, a hospital, a doctor, he needed help - he needed\nhelp...            He should leave.            He didn't want to.            Too consumed, too eaten,\nalready, by his heat - a piece of meat in the jaws of the forest.            Wonder, he remembered from his\nwritings was part of terror, and part of terror, wonder. He licked his fingers\nagain, he smelt his own blossoming odor, again, and his terror at his own body,\nhis own ­changed body, was matched, equalized, by a fascination... by wonder.            Immediately he thought of\nthose inhuman, abhuman things in the woods.            A kinship. A sameness. No\nlonger intruder - guest? This - felt right.            But why?            He had to stay. He had to go\nfurther.            James' whole body ached, that\nliquid - musk, he understood -\nrapidly pooling in his underwear, soaking through his pants so it looked like\nhe'd pissed himself. The reek was stronger, heavy spice, overripe blackberry,\nvenison... his asshole was flushed and leaking, flesh burning hot.            His undershirt stuck to his\nskin, soaked dark by sweat, his flannel long since discarded in an action he\ndid not remember.            He was going - up, he thought,\nmaybe, uphill nearly on all fours, hands clawing the undergrowth like he was\njust another one of those beasts he'd seen, following the game trail that he\nhoped - feared - was not just a game trail.            His scent trail must have been\nmiles long, announcing to every tree, every dead flower, every creature of the\nwood that his was a heat aching to be filled.            It wasn't long - there was a\ncrashing in the underbrush behind him, and James turned just in time to see one\nof the things burst onto the path, hands and hooves tamping the dirt as it\nswung around to face him.            James groaned out, a pathetic\nnoise, in relief. He wasn't going crazy, or if he was, the universe had gone\ncrazy too - he vacillated between knowing, thinking, seeing, and a waking\nunconsciousness, an inexorable descent into bestial instinct.            One of the beasts had appeared\nbefore him, out of the hickories.            It snorted, breath billowing\nout in clouds of steam, chipped antlers a messy palmate branching covering most\nof its face, wild and asymmetrical. Its hands were the same as the prints he'd\nseen: humanoid hands, for all that they went on all fours, nails dark and thick\nand shining, chartreuse with trampled grass.            From the vantage of being so\nfar away, before, James could not have appreciated the unholy beauty that was\nthe creature\nitself, an imperfect admixture of deer and man:            Its head was like that of a\ngreat buck, eyes aglow as they caught the moonlight, with those formidable, but\noddly asymmetric, antlers to match - what had to have been near three yards\nacross. He was near a head taller than James who was six feet already,\nshoulders and forearms shaggy with hoary, brownish fur, messy with twigs and\ndirt.          A tightly toned mass of\nleathery skin, near-human, in the way the muscles seemed to ripple with its\nslow, steady movement, made up its abdomen, showing four small teats. It walked\non bent legs, terminating in strong, black hooves. A breath of steam poured\nforth from its muzzle into the night air.            But what glinted most luridly\nin the moonlight, and caught James' eye, was the thing's grotesque, erect\nphallus - wholly animal and wholly monstrous, swollen, sharp tip aimed at the\nground, tip constantly dribbling watery slime.            For a moment - just a moment -\nhis stomach revolted, all his senses returned to him, all the horror of the\nsituation he was in hitting him clearly. The grotesque drip of the beast's\nrepulsive cock, so unnatural - or all too natural - it made him gag on nothing,\nthe thought of desiring the beast like something from the nightmare of\nsome depraved degenerate, churning sickeningly in his stomach.\n            Some inner voice screamed at him that he was in\ndanger - of what sort he could not think or know - and that he should run, he\nshould tear away from this awful monster who clearly had unwholesome,\nnauseating designs on him - but he could not.            His mind became cloudy again,\nand the beast drew nearer. The swells inside him expelled a near-fountain of\njuices, matched with a near-painful pang inside him, the winding of a muscle\npulled too tight and just starting to yield.            All he wished to see, all he\nwished to feel, was that cock - beautiful, sensual, perfectly designed cock,\ninside him, mounting him, destroying him, all to pleasure this phantom-figure\nof bestial sex.            He craved it - he craved this\nbeast.            In a frenzy he tore off his\nsweat-soaked undershirt, loudly ripping the fabric - he clawed off his jeans\nthat were lined with flannel and soaked to the thread with the musk he was\nproducing, sticky down his hairy legs.            James was naked, naked as this\nbeast was, he was a part of the forest, he was the very woods itself.            The beast inhaled deeply,\nnostrils flaring as it soaked up James' scent, and its cock twitched, slapping\nup across its underbelly, erupting in a gush of rank precum as though it were\npissing - a seconds-long stream of fertile ooze splattering the ground.            Now James realized he was\ndrooling: mouth agape, spit streaming into his beard. He was snuffling too, a\nwet sucking from his nose and mouth, trying to catch the beast's scent over the\noverwhelming musk of his own heat - mere seconds passed when, with a roar, the\nthing dove at him, knocking onto his back, with its muzzle digging into his\nass.            An animal bleat-scream of\neuphoria tore from James' throat as its tongue speared into his hole, leaving\nhim panting, bleary-eyed, and whining - he clenched his anus around the\ncreature's tongue, each motion sending a messy slurry of drool and juices\nsquirting from his ass, soaking the long, tapered muzzle.            The creature grabbed his\nthighs, a guttural noise of dominance resonating in its throat as he opened\nwide his maw. James was being torn into, a broad tongue folding over itself in\ngreasy furls as the beast lapped up his reeking heat-scent. Its claws dug into\nthe flesh of his thighs and he moaned, shudders wracking his body. He\nmindlessly rutted back against its muzzle, mind awash in bestial pleasure, and\nwhen he opened his mouth what came out was an animal paean, brother to the\nbeast's own bellows.            Its head twisted slow,\nmagnificent antlers asway, its eyes noctilucent in a stray shaft of moonlight,\nburning, brilliant green-yellow fire reflecting back into James' vision as it\nvoraciously, greedily, devoured the musk he was producing. And then it kept\nmoving, dark again, the wet slurp of its motions clear in the night, the twist\nof its tongue lapping deep in his ass, teasing out squirt after squirt of slimy\nmusk from his convulsing body, the afterimage of those gleaming eyes burned\ninto his retina.            James shuddered, back arching,\na dizzy explosion of pleasure from inside, ass squelching noisomely, panting\nlike an animal. Heat swarmed over him, toes to crown, like crashing waves of\nwater, pleasure surging and ebbing. It wasn't until he tasted thick salt on his\ntongue he realized he'd cum, having sprayed a load in a dribbling line up his\nchest, droplets tangled in his hair and in his beard, drooling down his cheek.            The beast pulled back, muzzle\ntethered with cords of slime back to James' ass, hanging so long in the chill\nair that when they snapped the impact was cold: lines of icy fluid splattering\nback across the feverish flesh of his ass.            Its head rose, breath steaming\nin the air, and leaned forward, gnarled hands pressing hot across James'\nstomach, chest, shoulders, until it was on top of him, cords of drool spilling\nover its dark lips and winding through its matted, frothy fur, spilling in\nsyrupy lines across James' face, pouring into his open mouth.            He panted, arching up - pinned\nby the creature's immense weight - and pressed his mouth to the great beast's\nmuzzle, a feral kiss, his own musk mixed with the sharper, acrid taste of its\nsaliva.            His hand came to near one of beast's\neyes, pressing tenderly against its face - the kiss, the exchange of tongues\nbetween the two, slowed, becoming less insistent, less hurried... James'\nbreathing became less labored, his lips cherishing the taste, however putrid,\nof his newfound lover. They twisted around each other, the beast's tongue\nlapping over his shoulder, James' lips dragging through dirty fur, inhaling\ndeep the dense odor of the fur.            But this space of time - what\nJames could feel was actually turning into malformed, hideous love - was not to\nlast. The smell, the taste - it was too irresistible, and a need inside him\nrose, violent, immediate.            The weight of its cock bore\ndown on him, unsheathed against his bare belly, burning hot against the chill\nair.            James moaned into the creature's\nmouth, his tongue deep into its muzzle as he rocked up against it, hands\nreaching for its slimy length.            It was slick, nearly slipping\nfrom his hands, but he grasped it at last, its heat like a burning brand\npressed against him, red-hot. With a powerful vibration, a cry of perfect\npleasure from the beast, out spurt a single gush, a wash of watery ooze, so\npotent its fumes almost hurt to inhale, acrid and pungent. Yellowish pre\nsplashed up James' stomach and chest, matted his hair to his skin and poured in\nrivers over his sides.            At once he broke off the kiss\n- his ass ached, his hole clenching then throwing itself open, each convulsion\nin his rectum blasting his musk-juices - he cried out to the beast, futilely\nwordless but utterly enslaved: he needed it in him - he needed to be bred.            He nudged the beast back,\nsliding up slightly that they could make eye contact - what passed for eye\ncontact in the half darkness. He groaned out his wish, he presented himself\nlike an animal, lifted his legs into the air, ready to be taken.            The beast bellowed out a call\nof triumph, grabbing him roughly, near-throwing him over to get a better aim\nfor its cock to James' hole - now he was sobbing into the forest floor, a\ntorrid volcanism of unrestrained emotions.            The beast entered him,\nspearing him like the piece of meat that, in his plummeting depravity, he was\nso desirous of becoming.            And then - everything went\nwhite, his whole being now a blinding synesthesia of pleasure, so intense that\nfor an instant he was certain that he would die this way.            His internal muscles spasmed\nuncontrollably, slurping, sucking, hungrily on the beast's cock. Each spasmodic\nclench sent a squirt of juice spraying down the beast's length, easing the way\nfor more to push inside. It was a pillar inside him, inhumanly thick, but it\nslipped into his heat-soaked guts with ease - the shaft filled him, slid\nfrighteningly deep inside him.            Even then his body was simply\ntoo small a vessel: the final length of its cock remained outside, steaming in\nthe chill air, as it ground its cockhead against some internal barrier within\nhim. The creature thrust, breath like a bellows across his shoulders and neck,\ndrool splattering down his back.            Tears streaked his cheeks, his\nnose was snotty, his spit spilled over his lips - there, face-down on the\nground, twigs stuck in his beard, grass in his mouth, petrichor and the dusty\ntaste of crushed dead leaves dimmed the overwhelming reek of their mating -\nthere, second by second, was James becoming less, still less, a human.            His very flesh reshaped itself\nas the beast fucked him, animal drives taken on a life of their own: he could\nfeel, a transporting euphoria, the as-yet shallow transformation sunk down to\nhis bones.            The heat, his heat, twisted\ninside him like a living thing, the coils of a snake churning in his guts,\nheartbeat bounding under his skin - he sobbed into the churned-up carpet of\ngrass and leaves even as he kept rutting back against the beast's shaft,\ndesperate for more, for all of it, beating his hips back against its stomach,\nmeeting each brutal thrust with one of his own.            Something like an old muscle\nache, a newfound locus of pain, throbbed inside him, and each of the beast's\nthrusts rammed against it, against some twisted knot of muscle inside him, an\nexquisite agony that brought fresh tears to his eyes, a rippling pleasure\nradiating out afterward.            And then - the beast stopped.            In his consumed rapture he had\nnot noticed the open flood of semen that had erupted into him, had not heard\nthe victorious trumpet from the creature's muzzle - but he did feel, and felt\nmiserably, with bleakest sorrow, the thing withdraw, the slurping sound of the\ncock leaving his ass final proof that the mating was over, that his ass had\nbeen used for its prime, sole purpose.            James groaned - loud, a cry of\ndespair.            The withdrawal of the beast's\ncock had left an insistent, obtrusive need that pained him - an imagined wound\ninside his guts that throbbed, vicious, incessant. His asshole was clenching,\npulsing, as though there were a primitive consciousness attached to it,\nstarving, famished, consumed with lust, even as he writhed on the ground.            He had been taken, but it was\nnot enough.            He was not sated.            He had been fucked - but not\nbred.            James' body sang with a fever\nthat the beast's semen, dripping slow from his abused asshole, stoked as though\nit were a raging flame, burning him, melting him, remaking his very flesh - he\nwatched, eyes wet, lungs sucking in air, as dark fur burned up across his\nforearms, prickling as it grew through his skin.            His balls bloomed with the\nsame hair, and his penis stood at attention yet again, lengthening, slimming,\ntapering, taking on - although he could not see it - a hue of deeper red,\nscarlet, moist and slippery.            An abrupt, brief, but\nexcruciating agony made his hands, and then his feet, seizure, nails shifting\nunder his skin, the clear keratin growing thicker, cloudy-dark - the old growth\nsnapped off, leaving him with ragged-edged claws, as above and so below, hands\nand feet, obsidian, near-radiant in the darkness.The hair across his thighs and\nass grew with the same bloom, new fur pushing up from his sodden skin, already\ntangled in tufts down the backs of his thighs - a new tail, bursting from a\ndescended coccyx, skin dripping messily where it emerged, appeared just above\nhis anus.            All of this to his amazement,\ncries of swept joy emanating out of him, his ability to use language, human\nlanguage, annihilated with his first rutting.            But a seizing cramp attacked\nhis stomach, his bowels, and he curled into a fetal position, the cries of\nhappiness morphing, as he was, into cries of bewilderment.            He could feel - things inside\nhim opening, shifting, new passages forming, the whole of his design becoming\nfreshly anew.            The image of the beast's cock\ninvaded his brain, filled his vision in violent hallucination, so strong, so\nlarge, so virile, so - fertile.            Again he cried out, weak, a\nsusurrus in the still Autumn night, his vocal cords strained now, strange now,\nhe sounded - different, he sounded - in his quiet supplication to nothing, like\none of the beasts.            Hearing himself this way let\nthe fever break and in its wake, singing in his veins, every heartbeat, came\nthe need to breed.            Where had the beast gone? He\nneeded him - he needed that dick, he needed that power, this new emptiness in\nhis new organs filled, to the brim, with life-giving fluid.            On all fours he dropped, and\nhe began to crawl.            Maybe, maybe the monster would\ncome back, maybe it would fuck him again, and he sniffed the air, helpless,\ntrying to detect where it could have gone. Perhaps it was with his herd - the\nwhole herd could take him, then, one after the other. And if not them - some\nhiker, human cock too small, too puny, disgusting in its inferior design but it\nwould do, anything, anything at all, to fill the aching emptiness inside him.            He could not say how long or\nhow far he went, a dazed shamble on all fours, bashing near-blind against\ntrees, whining and bleating, the moonlight his only guide.            James was desperate, the heat\nin his ass at an intense peak, its constant drool of musk sopping his new fur -\nhis breathing became labored as his despair grew and grew.            He could not take it anymore -\nthick tears came to his face as the musk began to flow in larger and larger\namounts, his arousal, his heat, controlling everything he did...            ... from the corner of his\nvision he saw a solitary white pine amidst the thick growth of older, larger\ntrees - there was a burst of activity in his febrile brain, a solution,\ningenious and awful.            He approached it still on all\nfours, and leaned into it, ass-first - his hole clenched and opened and he\nshuddered at the touch, the rough flaky bark scraping his assflesh, the very\ntouch so sensitive and delicate that sparks flew up in his mind's eye.            Yes - yes, this was what he\nneeded to do.            James took his rear end, his\nnew tail up, and moved it, up and down, down and up, against the shaggy bark of\nthe pine tree, letting it scrape roughly against his fertile, drippy ass.            Faster and faster he did it,\nharder, harder, pressing into the trunk so that his cheeks were splayed and\nnear wrapped around it, more and more, the sensation of feeling so exultant he\ndid not last long. His first orgasm in his new, evolved form, built and then\nerupted, spraying cum that started as normally human and ended, in mere\nseconds, as yellowish, in tandem with a new slow churn of musk out of his hole.\n            The tree was marked - he would come back to it\nlater. Others would follow.            A lassitude overtook him and\nhe stumbled forward, crashing to the ground, where he lay in a post-orgasmic\ncloud for - for how long?            He knew so little, his sense\nof time was nonexistent.            It was night when he set out,\nand it was still night when he rose, slowly, very slowly, and continued his\nblind journey to find the rest of the herd, and night yet still, when he\nemerged out of the densest heart of those woods, and into the clearing.            The way was guarded with two\nboulders, the ground underneath toothy with rocks, spidery lines of lichen\nalong innumerable cracks. And as if the tableau had been waiting for him all\nalong, there were two of the deer monsters in the clearing, bleating and\nhollering at each other.            The pair of men-deer were at\nopposite ends of the clearing, their hands and hooves at the ready on rock.\nTheir argument - or so it seemed - was concluded by the first giving a loud\ngrunt, answered by a repeated, concurring noise from the second.            And then - the way of nature,\nthe way of the woods, the way of all animals this way - they charged towards\neach other, antlers lowered.            They met with a crash, bodies\nrebounding from the force of the impact, and they shifted and swung around, met\nagain with a crash - horns locked together.            They bellowed, awful, territorial,\nas they fought, one angling its head down, the other angling up, sending their\nantlers in a stalemated scrape together.            And now one snarled, straining\nforward, a clawed hand raised in bestial supremacy, shoving, and like that the\ntwo rose into their hind legs, hands clasped together as they butted heads,\nbreath wheezing through their throats so that their whole bodies became\nwreathed in fog.            James was mesmerized by them -\ntheir gorgeous, relentless masculinity, the strength that was so raw and naked\nand displayed with such savage disdain for modesty and inhibition.            He breathed a cloudy vapor\nthat fumed from his mouth in increasing puffs.            He could not look away -\nswelling in his chest, an attraction, a desire, so ferocious it felt as though\nhis heart would be rent asunder, a gory disaster in his chest cavity.            The both of them were\nhalf-hard, the swell of their knobbled cockheads jutting from their sheaths,\nwobbling, jostling, powerfully, wetly, with every stray movement of their\nbodies.            James wanted them - he wanted\nthem both, to be mated to them in the mystic forest tradition that was stark\nand nameless and eternal as the mountains themselves.            Without thinking he let out a\nlong groan, digging his fingers into his anus, meeting a fresh dose of musk to\ndribble over his knuckles, and he arched his back, spearing himself in an\nobsessive desire - too hard, his vision whiting, blurring, a camera out of\nfocus, around the edges. His own shuddering cry was indistinguishable from the\nbugling roars of the fighting beasts.            One of the creatures twisted,\ndistracted by the display, and the other took advantage, hooves shifting under\nthe flurry of churned up grass - they toppled, the one on top bellowing\ntriumphant.            James' eyes slid back to the\npair, body trembling, shaking, with a carnal lust that waxed grotesque in a\nslow burning across his skin, in his body.            Before they had even settled\nJames was lurching forward, crawling on his hands and knees, desperate,\nanxious, to feel their strength, to become joined with them - his asshole\nclenched, wet ooze spilling down the back of his balls, before it opened wide\nlike a hungry mouth.            They were still fighting,\nantlers scraping with an ear-shattering din, but they fell deaf on James' ears:\ntoo focused, too ravenous, for anything but their cocks, drawn up tight against\ntheir bodies, so fat and heavy and fertile, the taut flesh of their balls\nrippling with each impact.            He tumbled into them,\nsprawling them sideways across the trampled grass, green smears across their\nfur and his skin alike - their fingers brushed his flank and he moaned, eyes\nrolling back into his head simply from the touch: he moved into it, bearing\ndown, guiding the clawed fingers to his ass, moist and hungry.            They were both unsheathing,\ntheir beautiful, bestial cocks leaving slimy smears where they smacked against\nhis thighs and belly, and finally - finally - one of them jerked up, the victor\nafter all, spearing into him effortlessly. The stretch of his aching flesh was\nso right James went boneless, dead weight sinking down onto the length of cock\nuntil he was pressed against its fat sheath, the whole of it still stiffening\nand lengthening inside him, the heavy drag turning into a sharper, fuller\nmotion as the beast pulled him back, thrusting hard into him, snarling and\nbleating against his neck.            The loser ground against his\nfront, cock dribbling up his stomach, and James gave it a glassy-eyed stare,\nmouth slack, hands loosely circling its shaft, tugging it needfully to a full\nerection as its challenger pounded into his aching hole.            The penis lengthened, longer,\nfuller, but it did not seem to come forth all the way - and shortly he\ndiscovered way. It chubbed, merely halfway, and from it poured a steady stream\nof acrid, near-clear yellowish fluid that, in the moonlight, nearly sparkled.\nIt splashed onto James' face, on his neck, then down his back - the scent was\nnoisome, a hideously aromatic acridity, a near-physical force...            ... and James relished it.            He was being marked - he was\nbecoming a part of their tribe, true family, true kin.            Even as he stank of the\nthing's piss, James bowed forward, pressing his lips to its muzzle, breath\npuffing out in bursts with each thrust, the other monster swallowing down his\nsounds as it began to kiss back, its tongue, thick, welcoming, lapped into his\npanting, drooling mouth, hips jerking under James as it began thrusting against\nhis hands.            The other beast snarled,\ntwisting James' head around, breaking the kiss, and shoved its muzzle into his\nface, tongue lapping from cheek to jaw before it, too, plunged its tongue into\nhis panting mouth.            And now the first beast\nrutted, the wet slap of its balls meeting his ass, musk spilling down onto the\nlap of the second beast below them, coating its unsheathing cock as James\npumped it up and down, reeking bursts of animal pre gushing from the tip,\nsplattering in an oily film across his belly and chest.            The beast ground against him,\nsnarling more - and like before, James was simply too small... the final inches\nof the beast's unsheathed cock ground between his cheeks, the knobbled tip\nrammed deep into his guts.            But this time James ground\nback, bearing down on the shaft, aiming for the twisted knot of muscle deep\ninside him. The beast's frenzied thrusts rammed against it again and again,\nspittle flecking his shoulders, gurgling streams of pre flooding down his ass,\nerupting in gushes as he tried desperately to take, entirely, the beast's cock.            James saw stars - above him\nthe moonlight seemed to bend and waver in his vision, he was transported; he\nwas no longer a part of this world or this existence - it was though he was\ndead.            In this limitless moment, he\ncould not feel, erupting, branching, out of his head, pure bone, his own set of\nantlers - could not see them gleam uncanny in the shafts of light from the\nMoon, and could not, also, see his two companion beasts pause in their respect\nministrations to nuzzle at them, to bellow deep and proud that their new member\nhad attained physical parity to them at last.            The growth of his antlers,\ndevoid of the fresh velvet that would make him closer to a true deer in the\nwild, but still dripping with blood from his abraded scalp, the skin hanging\noff in small clumps, at last stopped - and they were magnificent, a pointed,\nspiked symphony of ivory.            The sight of him like this\nmade the creatures' lust all the worse, and the one fucking him found itself in\na paroxysm of newfound pleasure, as within James himself, a new passage had\nopened up, now violated, the beast's cockhead rammed straight up into his very\ncore, bidding him open further - its dick slammed between his cheeks, bloated\nsheath flesh pressed in against his asshole.            Back to consciousness James\nreturned - his eyes rolled back in his head, wildly fucking himself on the\nbeast's cock, gasping at fur and flesh below him, determined, his own cravings\nscreaming at him, lost in the sensation, clawed hands on his hips and\nshoulders, a muzzle pressing against his lips at the same time another laved\nacross his chest, lapping and nipping at his nipples.            Another seconds-long gush of\nwatery preseed, spraying up across his chest, trickled between them as the\nvictor fucked him, the steady crack of each thrust a drumbeat in James' head,\ncounterpart to the racing hum that was his heartbeat.            James bleated, bellowing out a\ncry - an animal noise, his throat warped already, unable to make cogent human\nsounds.            He sobbed, he convulsed around\nthe beast's cock, spilling his paltry load across the fur of the beast below\nhim, clenching to add friction, make each driving thrust hit him with the force\nof a blow, the clenching throat deep inside him savoring each spurt of feral\nprecome until his belly began to gurgle nearly sloshing with each motion.            The two beasts grunted at each\nother - an understanding, a communication - and the second monster lurched\nforward, cock a burning brand from hips to chest...in a smooth motion it jerked\nback, sliding through James' loose fist until the tip was under his balls, and\nhis next jerk backwards buried the both of their cocks in him.            James tipped his head back, a\nscream that would not bear sound, hands clenching, digging into the fur below\nhim so hard he probably broke skin.            His heat-engorged asshole was\nso yielding, swallowing up the twin cocks - the stretch unimaginable, but to\nhis altered body so easy, two wrist-thick cocks swallowed up inside him to the\nsheath even as the beasts squabbled and fought, James between them thinking\nonly of the both of them breeding him, taking him again and again.            The beast below him bellowed\nin triumph, its bleat echoing in James' ears, its cock throbbing inside him. \n            The clearing was filled with the wet slap of\ntheir sheaths kissing his gaping asshole, again and again, body stretched\nbeyond what would be breaking for anyone else - syrupy lines of their yellowed\npre and his own musk-juices smeared under them, drawing out on each withdrawal\nonly to splatter across his haunches when they slammed back inside, knobbled\ncockheads jamming into the clenching tunnel inside him. His asshole was not\nmerely just a second mouth, but hungry, suckling, second throat: swallowing and\nswallowing, drinking down the beasts' fertile precum and only letting a thin\nstream spill back out from his guts.            They used him - he allowed\nthem the privilege, the right. He was aware, subtly, the faintest sensation, as\na fly upon the skin, of his teats opening, a slow dribble of milk dripping onto\nthe ground - then two more, then two more again, until the ground below him was\nrich with the liquescent cream of his...yes, that was what it was, his maternal offerings.\n            James' eyes rolled back into his skull,\nwhuffing and drooling as he convulsed, asshole clamping and squirting around\ntheir cocks as they hammered inside him, again and again, tongues lapped at his\nskin, drooling down his shoulders, across his chest, teeth existing as points\nof pressure against his overheated skin, fur thickening down the back of his\nneck. Froth built between them, ooze, grimy bubbles speckling their fur,\nsoaking down to their skin as they mated as feral animals.            The victor in the duel before\norgasmed first, thrusts becoming short slaps, its knobbled cockhead never quite\npulling from his devouring hole - James' ass - as it ground its sheath, each\nsharp thrust jolting James forward. \n            The beast bellowed, its body tensing, cock\ntwitching and shifting inside him just before it erupted, shooting with such\npower that it stung - hot, impossibly potent bursts of feral semen burst inside\nhim, gurgling inside his aching womb, swallowed and held safe in its\ndestination. The beast came and came, unloading explosively until the pressure\nached, an ocean of thick stag issue inside him. The beast finally pulled back,\na single squirt of its load escaping with it, gushing in an opaque yellow-white\nrope down the twin shafts lodged inside him.            The second beast, cock sliding\nthrough his stretched passages made its final few thrusts, churning the load\nalready spilling inside him before it came with its own roar, hosing down the\nwalls of his womb with its bestial load until it churned and sloshed, gurgling\ninside with each fresh pump, flesh aching and stretched.\n            His clenching new cervix hungrily drank down\nits issue as it pulled back, only smears left on its shaft as it spilled out,\nthe final dribbles grey-yellow in the moonlight, spilling across its underbelly\nas its cock slipped between James' thighs. He was splattered with pre, oozing\nfrom his gaping ass and churned into thick froth, but his body swallowed their\nloads hungrily, issue a heavy wet weight deep inside him, sloshing and gurgling\nnearly with each breath.            James slumped forward, heat\nfor the first time ebbing - not sated, not yet, but its fire guttering for the\nfirst time since he'd woke. His milk did not cease its flow,  but slowed, at last.            His body was trembling,\nexhausted, and he fell - not into sleep, precisely, but a restless kind of\nwaking dream, aware of his body sprawled on the matted grass, of the\ndeer-beasts who bred him leaving, and then, slowly, of luminous eyes appearing\nat the edges of the clearing: the herd coming to him, drawing ranks around him.\n\n            He must have dreamed the watching, glimmering,\ngemstone-luminious eyes, because he opened his own eyes when he woke - perhaps it was just the sounds of their\napproach: the clatter of hooves on stone and fallen leaves, the softer tread on\ngrass, the soft, paper-leather sound of their clawed hands curling over rocks,\ntrees, as they gathered around him, ringing the clearing...seven, yes, a small\nnumber, an endangered species.            When he woke the Moon was\nalmost directly overhead, turning the clearing into a study in light and\nshadow, the very faintest tinge of color, grey at the edges. \n            And standing before him, slowly emerging from\nthe shadows, was the final beast he'd seen in the ritual: the one holding the\nwreath. His horns, lit by the moonlight, seemed to curl into existence,\nrevealed as distinct from the thicket of crisscrossing branches behind his\nhead: the yellow-brown bone nearly ivory in the moonlight, and slowly unfolding\ninto the light.             The eldest of the beasts; the\nancient patriarch of this tribe of animal beasts, an elk of Pliocene\nproportions, so vast had James stood on two legs - had he still found it\nnatural to stand on two legs - his head would have been level with its own, horns\ncracking the sky, blotting out stars and cutting the Moon into two crescents.            When he'd seen the old stag\nbefore, in the ritual, it had seemed alien, almost deformed in its white-furred\ngait - now it seemed simply nigh-divine, the ascendantly paramount of the herd,\nthe eldest, the master, the one who demanded service, the one who needed not\nfights or bellows to prove himself. \n            James was eager - eager, so eagar, his anus\nafire - to serve him.            The beast's cock was vaster\nyet still than the animal lengths that hung from the herd around him: the size\nof James' leg, even the thin tapered tip fatter than his fist. James swayed,\neverything else whirling around him as he sunk forward, beneath the grand\nbeast's bulk, lapping at the filthy fur around its unsheathing cock, sucking\ndown mouthfuls of gritty old musk. It was so heavy, so hard, a treetrunk when\nit twitched and slapped against his side, nearly enough to send him sprawling\non the ground. \n            And sprawl on the ground he did: hands planted\nin the muddy mess he'd made in his last mating, hooves spread wide, grinding\nhis ass back against the length of its cock, overwhelmed mind thinking only of\nthe heat spanning from his tail to his shoulders and needing it sunk inside\nhim, needing his body speared through by that, the utter pinnacle of these\nstag-things' warped masculinity, that grand stag's erect length a profane\nnatural god in its own right, speaking of some neolithic fertility ritual: the\nact itself, fucking, mating, mother to a new species into the world.\n            His nipples swelled, bloated grotesquely - a\ntorrent of milk spilled out, onto the ground, out of him, out of James, future\nmother to a new race, fresh progeny.            His ass was grossly distended,\na thick ring of heat-engorged flesh, supple and oozing as he rutted against the\nbeast's underbelly, knocking its shaft against his puffy flesh and sliding up\nuntil he captured the tip between his cheeks - its watery pre flooding across\nhis back and licking down his sides, pouring like rain to the ground below.           Even\nthen it was a struggle, the tapered cockhead scraping through his ring,\nspreading flesh in thick slabs, so solid James nearly didn't have the strength\nin his heat-weakened limbs to push himself backwards.            James shoved himself\ndesperately backwards, nearly hanging limp from the spire of its cock, the\ngrand beast's hooves unmoving around him - his elder legs were like unto\npillars fixing the ground to the sky, so magnificent and perfect and masculine\nwas this creature's form. \n            The broken ring of James' ass smeared onto the\nlength of its cock, twinges of pain breaking through even the euphoric hunger\nof heat. \n            Each burst of pre felt like it was pissing\ninside him: long, shuddering gushes of watery slime pouring inside him,\npressure growing until it squirted from his asshole and painted their\nrespective haunches, the shaggy fur of the beast's underbelly hanging down in\nlong tassels, soaked to James' skin, wiping back and forth to coat him fully in\nits own precum. \n            James had a hungry mouth inside him that the\nelder beast battered against, the muscle blooming open like a flower in an\nobscenely wet gush, the fertile issue from his prior suitors drooling out\naround the patriach's shaft, oozing in grimy tendrils to the ground.            His muscles gaped around its\ncockhead, wetly suckling like a babe from a teat. Each flex of its cock rippled\nthrough his body, its urethra flexing open like a kiss against the deepest\nrecesses of his being, bidding his new teats, having sprouted from his flesh,\nto pour out milk, yet more milk, heavy cream, deliciously aromatic of wood,\ngrass, fresh verdure in the dead of Autumn. \n            James' womb ached from the sheer volume of the\npatriarch's gift, wetly gurgling and churning with each new blast of pre,\nbursting inside him and gushing out around the patriarch beast's cock: watery\nfluid streaming in burning rivers down his insides, building up in sloshing\nreservoirs and erupting from his ass in messy runnels, splattering the ground\nbeneath with his milk, and churning into tarry mud as he forced himself back on\nthe grand stag's cock, his new uterus nearly filled completely by the beast's\nsolid cockflesh.            He arched against the beast,\ntaking on a new obsession, until the beast finally rutted back against him,\nimplacable flesh boring deep inside him, gushes of pre gurgling inside him and\npouring back out, upwelling around his achingly used body. \n            James groaned, nearly collapsing bonelessly\nfrom the single thrust. The beast bellowed, head tipped up as if to drink from\nthe Moon overhead, and its cock convulsed, each pulse nearly painful as its\ntissue swelled and receded inside him.            The first gush was nearly a\nhalf-second later, a scalding rush of heat inside him burning his core. James\npanted, a feral whine bleating from his mouth, stuttered and trembling as the\nbeast filled him with its issue. His body gurgled, drinking muscles\noverwhelmed, rubbery and aching against the implacable pillar of the beast's\ncock. Seed filled him in pulses, flesh bloating and distending as his womb was\nfilled beyond capacity, his body appearing nearly pregnant already before his\nhungry cervix stretched and parted, a solid gush of grimy off-white cum\nerupting from his ass and splattering across the beast's haunches, each new\ngush inside him met after seconds by a eruption between their bodies, the\npatriarch's load already so much more than all three of the other beasts\ncombined, sluicing down his furred legs and webbing in messy tendrils between\nthem, and still the beast's ejaculation went on and on until the ground beneath\nthem was churned and sloppy, soil rich and dark with the beast's excess.            The final pulses kicked deep\ndirectly inside James' womb, and, exhausted, he slumped, nigh-gelatinous, off\nthe beast's cock, falling to a pile into the rich mud below - a wet slurp\nechoed from inside him as he fell to the ground, ass gaping, cervix deep inside\nhim slowly pursing closed, a messy noise of semen squirting across his inner\nwalls until his aching uterus slowly sealed shut in a final frothy gush of\nbestial cum, sticking the fur of his tail to his ass cheeks. His asshole\nfollowed seconds later, a pair of painful slabs as they ground against each\nother, musk still squirting across his cheeks, forming runnels through the mass\nof come coating his lower body, new fur matted flat to his skin.            He was dimly aware of hooves\non the ground next to him, a thick layer of semen flooding over top the\nchurned-up mud, and of hands, claws, grasping his sides and arms, slowly\nshifting his delirium-stricken body. \n            His eyes slipped closed, only catching snatches\nof beast-like faces lit by moonlight in flickers as he was jolted, before he\nwas finally laid down in a pile of fall leaves, which became nearly glued to\nhis bare skin as he stirred, approaching sleep. \n            A furry body curled around him, muscles strong\nagainst his aching flesh, and as its warmth soaked into his bones James slipped\nfully into sleep.            Ambiently, in the night, he\nheard more noises, and felt bodies shift around him. \n            Inquisitive claws dragged around his flushed\nass, peeling away crusted layers of semen, pushing inside his hole, James\ngroaned aloud, twisting to the side to give the beast better access, groaning\nin his half-slumber as the beasts lapped at his ass, coaxing fresh musk even as\nhe dreamed.\n            The lapse in time became complete - it was no\nlonger a matter of waking, dreaming, and breeding, but an impenetrable\nsurreality that he was disallowed, forever, for the rest of his mortal life,\nfrom comprehending.            The days passed in a haze - he\nwould wake, crusted with issue, skin tacky and fur matted, and presented\nhimself to more deer, the precious: mounted a half-dozen times, each cock\nfeeding the hunger inside him, even though he knew by now he was thoroughly\nbred. \n            He was filled until it drooled down his thighs,\nfed bark and berries on platters of leaves, munched them on his omnivorous\nhuman teeth - the same actions, the same cycle, went on until dusk, and then\nagain, repeated and permuted, day after day for a full week, perhaps, before the haze of his heat\neven began to ebb.            The breeding had taken, he\nknew even before he began to show - his purpose, his mutation, his change, for\nthe good of an endangered and deleteriously small herd. \n            He would be a mother.\n            It was like a second heart inside him, a\npulsing core of new life: a new fawn for the herd, the first in a time that\nwould remain, for humans, for the world that James had forcibly abandoned,\nimmemorial, for the semen of the patriarch dwarfed and embarrassed - if such a\nthing could be possible - the seed of the other herd, and so it was that he was\nimpregnated, immediately, impossibly, with the last of whom his musk-laden rear\nhad craved.\n            How many seasons had the creatures held that\nritual, baying up at some feral god? Waiting for him - for someone like him,\nfor James. This was the inescapable,\nthe complete, the utter truth: his arrival - fate or chance, it was inevitable,\ninexorable either way.\n            He was always going to end up like this,\nsomehow. \n            He chased after the beasts, the cryptids, the\nunknown, and eventually the unknown caught him - and now he was amongst them.            Now, soon, he would be heavy\nwith child, or rather fawn - it would quicken in the night as the Autumn drew\non to Winter, it would rouse him from his slumber.\n            Sleepily, in the nightvision that had possessed\nhis eyes with his evolution, he would grip his hands over his stretched belly,\nbigger by the day knowing that the fawn of the patriarch that had bred him was\nnestled there, that it would come out of his musk-slicked ass and be unsteady\non its feet before he would lick it with his still-human tongue, and love it,\nas his own, daughter or son. \n            And he would bellow, softly, to not the wake\nthe other slumbering members of the herd - how perfect, how happy he was, his\nbelly bulging and swollen with a new a life inside him.\n            Some mornings he would awake, sick and weak -\nhe would vomit, and cry out, but the herd was there, to lick him tenderly, to\nbring him obscure herbs to calm his upset stomach as the fawn grew and grew\ninside his belly, bigger, bigger every day.\n            There would be months to go, he knew, before\nSpring, before he could birth this beautiful new creation to the world and\nraise it with love - then, he knew, somehow, would come the heat, once more,\nthe craving and the need and the expulsions of his delicious, spiced, meaty\nmusk...he would be ready for the herd, bred over and over again until it took. \n            He would beckon with an animal bugle from his\never-human lips the patriarch, the eldest and the wisest and the greyest, as\nnew mate, as new companion, and be rewarded with thick, rich, delicious,\never-fertile seed, inside him, his body now built to keep it all, and swell\nwith progeny, season after season after season.            Here he was, his new life, his\nnew family - as his human had been, going where the mysterious wind had taken\nthem, so too had taken him...and he would never leave it.\n            He was nature - he was a part of a herd of\nuncharted, unknowable creatures.\n            He was\nnow what he had always been seeking."}